Is Recall the Second Brain for the AI Era?
We gave four people on our team Recall, an AI knowledge base and Evernote alternative, for three weeks. Here’s our honest verdict.
Case studies
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How We Saved $27,000 in Two Weeks: Cost-Cutting in a Creator-Led Business
Over the past few weeks, we completed our first rigorous cost-cutting exercise in the 10 years Forte Labs has been in business. Cost-cutting is a strange subject to talk about as a creator-led business. We’re not supposed to worry about those pesky annoyances called “expenses” or “profitability.” We’re on the Internet, and the Internet is…
The Case for Brazilian Online Education
I recently traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, to meet with a Business Development representative from Hotmart, the largest online learning platform in Brazil and one of the largest in the world. Hotmart was founded in 2011 and has grown explosively since then to over 1,000 employees, serving over 30 million customers in 18 countries with…
Podcast Time Travel: What I Learned From Listening to 100 Episodes of the SPI Podcast
Over the last 18 months I performed an experiment in how I consume content. I became a father in 2020. It was and continues to be one of the most profound, joyful experiences of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But alongside this dramatic shift in my life, I noticed another great…
Octavia Estelle Butler: Notetaking as Science Fiction
Octavia Estelle Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA. Known in her early years as “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school. Her shyness combined with slight…
Second Brain Case Study: Sleep Training an Infant
Many of the case studies I share about how I use digital notes involve major writing projects, because that is the most challenging kind of project I use my Second Brain for. But there is a different kind of use case that is just as meaningful: everyday life challenges. Challenges like troubleshooting the wifi at…
The Godfather Notebook
In 1969, studio executives at Paramount Pictures were desperate to find a film director for a new movie they had purchased the rights to. It was to be a crime drama based on the New York Mafia. One after another, all the top directors of the era turned the project down. They all found it…
The Box: Twyla Tharp on Project-Based Organizing
In my PARA Method, I teach people how to organize all their digital notes and files using a simple, 4-part system. Your computer is your working environment for many of your waking hours. Until you take control of it and design it to support the kinds of thinking you want to do, every minute spent there…
The Modern Swipe File: 15 Unexpected Uses for Digital Notes
One of the most common questions I’m asked is “What should I save in my digital notes?” My typical answers include “highlights from books,” “website bookmarks,” and “social media favorites.” Those are the bread and butter of online content. But they are also just the very tip of the iceberg. There is a whole universe…
How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes
Over the last year I filmed a short documentary on the life and artistic career of my father Wayne Forte. He has been one of the strongest influences on me, not only as a father, but as a prolific lifelong artist. I wanted a way to share his remarkable story with a wider public, to…
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…
Progressive Summarization for Clinical Notes
By Dr. Roberto A. Leon Ferre, Oncologist, Mayo Clinic Here is a typical (hypothetical) clinical note for a breast cancer patient in a busy oncology clinic such as my own: A 35-year-old premenopausal female with recently diagnosed breast cancer presents today for recommendations regarding treatment. Her oncologic history is as follows: August 15, 2016: patient…