I long ago stopped reading books on note-taking. They were always too vague and boring, full of platitudes that had little to do with the world outside academia. I especially avoided “how-to” style books on the subject. They would often list dozens of tips and tricks that had little to do with each other. There…
Since 2013, we’ve helped thousands of students hone their professional skills through our courses in productivity and personal effectiveness. We’ve seen them gain knowledge, master new skills, and take on new perspectives that have had a profound impact not only on their careers, but on their quality of life. Now we are kicking things up…
Check out my super in-depth, 2-hour conversation with my co-instructor David Perell below. We talk about what we think the future of online education will look like, how creativity and productivity are evolving in the modern world, and what we’ve learned from teaching over 1,000 students through our online courses, Building a Second Brain and…
Our approach to education is based on 8 pillars. They are our guiding principles in designing every aspect of the learning experience for our students: 1. Deep trust Learning cannot happen without trust. Community cannot happen without trust. Growth cannot happen without trust. Our students demand an environment of deep trust, and we will do…
I recently completed an intensive 10-week accelerator for online courses called Email Boss. The program was one of the greatest educational experiences I’ve ever had. I learned more about online marketing and persuasive psychology in 10 weeks than in the previous 6 years of trial and error in online marketing combined. In this article, I…
The relationships that underpin a strong community don’t happen by accident. They require “social infrastructure” – the physical spaces in which people have direct, face-to-face interaction. Communities emerge from places like schools, playgrounds, parks, athletic fields, sidewalks, courtyards, community gardens, churches, civic associations, markets, cafes, diners, barber shops, bookstores, and libraries. Libraries are the focus…
Last year I received an intriguing message from someone who called himself “The Efficient Librarian.” He had recently completed my online course Building a Second Brain, and said he wanted to talk about a collaboration. This mysterious sender turned out to be Doug Crane, writer of The Efficient Librarian blog and director of the county…
Below is an interview with Paul Millerd, a freelance strategy consultant and prolific content creator, on his experience turning the knowledge he gained through his consulting work into a series of online courses on Boundless U. We talk about, among other things: Paul’s journey to creating courses (starting with a resume course 5 years ago) Using…
Here are some of the main differences between my Building a Second Brain methodology and others. 1. This isn’t yet another method for how to be successful It is the method that prepares you to benefit from all those other methods – how to gather and organize the knowledge you need to make use of…
I recently joined an online course “accelerator,” in which a course marketing expert coaches 5 course creators through 10 weeks of exercises and experiments to level up their marketing efforts. It’s been a fascinating journey already, and I’ll be sharing bits and pieces of what I discover here on the blog. One of the most…
I’m very proud to announce the 2019 Summer of Learning, an integrated curriculum of two courses focused on modern writing. For the first time ever, we’re combining back-to-back live cohorts of Building a Second Brain and Write of Passage into an immersive program co-taught by Tiago Forte and David Perell. In Building a Second Brain,…
I first started taking notes on a computer at the age of 22, when I came down with a mysterious illness in college. The pain was inconsistent, varying a lot from day to day. At first I thought it was a temporary thing, that it would soon go away. But it grew steadily worse, over…