The Forte Labs Blog

Dedicated to Exploring the Frontier of Modern Productivity

Interview with Oliver Sauter of Memex

I interviewed Oliver Sauter, the Co-Founder of a knowledge management and online bookmarking platform called Memex. Memex is built by a company called WorldBrain, whose vision is “A well informed and less polarized society where everyone can use their full attention to create knowledge and make sustainable, effective and compassionate decisions.” Their vision is “To…

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The 5 Stages of Building a Second Brain

By Pranav Mutatkar Note from Tiago: these are the “5 stages” a recent student went through as part of my online course Building a Second Brain, in which I teach people how to create a system of personal knowledge management (known as a “Second Brain”) for themselves. 1. Holy crap, this could change everything. I’m going…

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Project-Based Learning: Designing a Capstone Project

By Will Mannon, Forte Labs Course Manager This memo outlines the Capstone Project that students will complete for Cohort 10 of Building a Second Brain (BASB). It was originally written for our internal team, but in the spirit of “working with the garage door open”, I’ve decided to share it here. Overview Each student will be…

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Tiago Forte on the Everything is Teachable Podcast

I recently sat down with Melissa Guller on the official Teachable podcast, Everything is Teachable. Teachable is the online learning platform we use to deliver all our programs. In this episode, we talked about why I believe pre-produced content isn’t necessarily the best approach for online courses of any size. I made my most forceful…

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The Automation of Note-Taking and the Just-In-Time Future of Work

Cover image “beauty in the brains” by bedelgeuse A student recently asked me, “How do you have the self-discipline to open up your notes app every time you encounter an interesting idea?” Suddenly I realized: I don’t. It’s so critical that note-taking be easy and frictionless, that even opening an app is too much of a…

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Own Your Writing Platform

Publishing a book is like running for political office.

There are a lot of people out there who you want to take a certain action, at a certain time and place in the future. With political campaigning, that action is to vote. With book campaigning, it is to buy your book.

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Evaluating Your Book Idea

In the beginning, is a message.

You have something to say. A message that wants to get out of you. That needs to get out of you or else it will keep you up every night and drive you crazy.

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The Complete Guide to Landing a Book Deal

I recently signed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster for my book Building a Second Brain.

As a first-time author, and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in a generation, this is a spectacular outcome. It took a year of hard work, a team of editors and advisors, and countless proposal drafts and revisions, along with a heavy dose of luck.

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The Lifecycle of a Profitable Online Course

I recently joined Chris Sparks to discuss the evolution of online education and identify the fastest path to creating profitable and sustainable online courses. In case you didn’t know, I’ve created 5 successful online courses which have generated over two million dollars in sales. My flagship course, Building A Second Brain, has been taken by more…

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How To Work Effectively With A Personal Assistant, with Tim Francis

It is NOT easy OR cheap to “hire a VA.” But if done right, it is profoundly transformational not just for your daily workload but for your quality of life. I recently hosted a comprehensive, two-hour online workshop with the founder of Great Assistant, Tim Francis. Tim’s company is a three-part hydra: one part recruiting service, one part…

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Interview on the Talk of Today Podcast with Sam Barton

I recently joined Sam Barton on his podcast Talk of Today. We had a pretty wide-ranging discussion, covering where people go wrong when it comes to organizing their information, general thoughts about Twitter, the social platform responsible for this conversation, my life philosophy Servant Hedonism, a bit about trauma, and why I’m an arms-dealer for smart people. Listen on Stitcher or…

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