Blog - Forte Labs

How I Used Amazon Reviews to Predict Sales of My Book

This research project started with a simple question that has crossed every author’s mind: How can I tell which books are successful? TV shows have Nielsen ratings, music albums have the Billboard Top 100, and movies regularly publicize their box office earnings, but not books. Bestseller lists like The New York Times are notoriously subjective, while more objective ones like Amazon and The Wall Street Journal only provide rankings, not raw numbers.

A Single Creative Project Can Change the Trajectory of Your Life

It doesn’t have to be a huge project. It doesn’t have to be well-funded or prestigious or public. But it does have to draw something out of you so unexpected that it changes your conception of who you are. The kind of creative project I’m talking about creates an unmistakable inflection point in your life….

Inventing the Digital Filing Cabinet

The modern era didn’t start with the invention of the car, the television, or the internet. It was the arrival of the humble filing cabinet – a simple metal box with drawers that held pieces of paper on their edge – that changed everything. As Craig Robertson argues in his book The Filing Cabinet: A…

Why I Will No Longer Teach Building a Second Brain

This month will be the last time I teach a cohort of Building a Second Brain. After teaching 6k graduates in 16 cohorts over 6 years, it’s time to pass the torch to new instructors who will take over from here on out. Here’s why I’m making this decision: At every point in my journey, I’ve been surprised…

Tiago’s 2022 Annual Review: From Mid-Life Crisis to Reinvention

Over the past few weeks, I did something I’ve never done before: I read through all my old journals going back 10 years. I’m not a hardcore journaler, as you can probably tell by the fact that only 7 notebooks cover a full decade of my life. Journaling is more of a crisis intervention tool…

Remixing Religion: The Dawn of Personalized Spirituality

About a decade ago, I came across a video on YouTube that profoundly shaped my view of how culture works. Everything Is A Remix by documentary filmmaker Kirby Ferguson argues that all new creative works are built from preexisting ones in an endless process of what he calls “remixing.” From music to movies to video…

Tiago Forte at Nonprofit productivity summit

Nonprofit Productivity: Leveraging Software to Shape Your Career

Mike St. Pierre invited me to speak at his 2022 Nonprofit Productivity Summit. In less than 25 minutes, we covered… Why I’m not a fan of digital minimalism The simple mindset shift to step out of the information overload crisis How taking notes can have a miraculous impact on you and your career The under-appreciated benefits…

Bullet Journal: The Difference Between Our First & Second Brain

Ryder Caroll, the creator of the Bullet Journal, invited me to discuss all things personal knowledge management (PKM) and Building a Second Brain. We covered: First vs Second Brain What a Second Brain looks like How to use a notebook as a Second Brain Goals vs Projects The Second Brain and reflection The future of…

The Origins of Personal Knowledge Management | Dr. Jason Frand

I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Jason Frand, THE personal knowledge management (PKM) pioneer. In 1999, Dr. Jason Frand and Carol Hixon wrote the revolutionary paper ‘Personal Knowledge Management: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How?’. This article coined the term PKM and changed its trajectory forever. In this interview, we discussed: Where the idea for PKM…

How to Capture Ideas Like a Pro | The Pinkcast

I joined best-selling author Daniel Pink on The Pinkcast to discuss how to take notes and capture like a pro. In 193 seconds, we also discussed: Why we should offload information? The 30-day experiment to make you a pro at notetaking How to retrieve your notes quickly and efficiently Watch our quick chat here:

All Things Second Brain | Productivityist

I joined fellow productivity nerd Mike Vardy on the Productivityist podcast to discuss the depths of PKM and what it really means to Build a Second Brain. We dived into: Why notetaking needs to be a little chaotic, messy, and informal Why most life management systems fail The difference between productivity and personal knowledge management When I…

The Business of Building a Second Brain | Conscious Creators Show

I sat down with Sachit Gupta on the Conscious Creators Show to discuss the business of Building a Second Brain. We covered… Why I thought of shutting down my company How I went from solopreneur to a team of 10 The biggest mistakes creators make The lessons I learned from my artist dad The importance…

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