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.
The Forte Labs Blog
Dedicated to Exploring the Frontier of Modern Productivity
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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.
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…
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…
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…
Latinos Who Tech: How to Become a Digital Nomad with Lauren Valdez
My partner in business and life Lauren Valdez recently sat down to speak with Hugo Castellanos on his podcast Latinos Who Tech. They talked about our path to becoming digital nomads and moving to Mexico City, how we navigate disagreements while running the business together, and her uniquely Latina take on productivity and knowledge management….
I Got a Book Deal for Building a Second Brain!
Series Navigation: Book UpdatesBook Update #1: Popularizing the Second Brain >>I couldn’t be more proud to announce that I’ve signed a six-figure book deal with Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, to publish my book Building a Second Brain. Subscribe below to get updates on my progress, sneak peeks at early chapters, and…
The New Forte Labs Website
I’m very pleased to officially present the new Forte Labs website! Here’s what’s new: New logo I had designed my last logo in about 15 minutes using cheap software, and it wasn’t up to the task of representing the company any longer. The WordPress developer created it as part of the site design, and I think…
The Building a Second Brain Podcast
After years of being a guest on other people’s podcasts, I finally pulled the trigger and made one of my own. Introducing the brand new Building a Second Brain Podcast, where I’ll talk about the main ideas from my course of the same name. I think people have enough long-form interviews, so I’m making my…
Webinar: You Need a Second Brain Now, with Rich Schefren and Tiago Forte
REPLAY NOW AVAILABLE: You Need a Second Brain Now with Tiago Forte & Rich Schefren Click here to learn more
Live Q&A on Cohort 10 of Building a Second Brain
In this Q&A session I answer questions about the recent workshop How To Take a Digital Note, and about the upcoming cohort 10 of my online course Building a Second Brain kicking off April 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhN3As6AgkE
Progressive Summarization with PDFs
By Marie-Pier Corbeil, Vice President and Lead Designer at RVE (Recharge Véhicule Électrique), working on solutions for EV charger installation in multi-unit residential buildings To use progressive summarization with PDFs, here’s what I do: 1. I highlight and comment passages in PDF Expert (which is my layer 1): 2. I export my highlights…
Topics I Write About Include
- Practical tools for making your day-to-day work more productive
- Summaries of the most important books for understanding modern knowledge work
- The nature of human attention and the flow state
- How to build a “Second Brain” to organize your ideas outside your head
- Insights from cognitive science we can use to change our behavior
- Practical techniques to enhance creativity
- How to use design principles to create workflows that support our performance
- Modern education and how to best take advantage of online learning resources
- Emotional intelligence and self-awareness as learnable skills
- The role of entrepreneurship and self-employment in the future of work
- Using science-fiction and futurism to predict the future
- New perspectives on traditional productivity topics like goals, habits, and time management
- How to effectively take notes and organize information to enhance your learning
- New ways of thinking about marketing in the digital era
- What personal growth looks like without mysticism and religion
- Project management and how it is evolving alongside new technology
- Deep trends in technology and culture and how they impact business strategy
- The power of curation and writing in carving out a niche and becoming a thought leader
- Exploring the Theory of Constraints and how it applies to knowledge work
- and much more…
Explore Our Articles By Category
Series
- Choosing your Second Brain apps
- The Making of a Bestseller: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Creation of Building a Second Brain
- Building a Second Brain Book Updates
- The Complete Guide to Landing a Book Deal
- Progressive Summarization: A Practical Technique for Designing Discoverable Notes
- Just-In-Time Project Management: A Digital-First Framework for Modern Projects
- The Rise of the Full-Stack Freelancer: A Portfolio Approach to Modern Work
- The Theory of Constraints 101: Applying Principles of Flow to Knowledge Work
- MESA: Creating the Ideal Work Experience
- The Untethered Soul: Roadmap of My Personal Growth
- A Quest for Self-Knowledge: From Self-Help to Somatic Healing
- 12 Favorite Problems
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