Note-taking

Building a Second Brain at Knowledge Conf 2019 (Russian)

This is a presentation by Andrei Aleksandrov at Knowledge Conf 2019, in which he summarizes my Progressive Summarization technique for highlighting passages while reading for easy retrieval. It is in Russian without subtitles. Here is the automatically generated transcript in Russian (anyone willing to translate it to English for me?): 07:40 наткнулся на мудрую черепаху…

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Second Brain Case Study: Using Digital Notes for Stand-Up Comedy

In this wide-ranging conversation, I spoke with Michael Skiba, who participated in the very first cohort of Building a Second Brain in January 2017. He talks about how he’s continued using and developing his Second Brain over that time. Our conversation includes: How he uses his digital notes to maintain a side gig as a…

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The Case for First-Brain Memory

By Tasshin Fogleman Building A Second Brain (BASB) is an effective default for personal knowledge management (PKM) in the digital era. But outsourcing our creative thinking to a second brain has its pitfalls. A robust memory can be a useful supplement to digital PKM systems. Contrary to Tiago’s assumptions, memory is not a useless, outmoded…

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The 10 Principles of Building a Second Brain

Now available in Spanish. If I had to give everyone one piece of advice for improving their productivity and learning, it would be “principles over prescriptions.” Every tip and tactic has a shelf life, and will someday become outdated. Even the most cutting-edge new app will eventually lose relevance. The history of managing ideas reveals…

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What Makes Building a Second Brain Different

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…

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Announcing the 2019 Summer of Learning

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,…

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The Story Behind 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…

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Introducing the Forte Labs OneNote Resource Guide

We’re very proud to introduce version 1.0 of the Forte Labs OneNote Resource Guide. It is a public, shared notebook containing videos, tutorials, add-ons, technical and reference information, and other resources. The notebook was created with Microsoft OneNote and is designed to allow anyone to quickly learn the ins and outs of the popular digital…

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