0:00

Since you enjoy this show, I

0:02

thought I'd throw out there another

0:04

podcast you might like. It's a

0:06

show about the intersection of design,

0:08

technology, and the creative process. It's

0:10

the Design Better podcast. In each

0:12

episode, hosts Eli Woolery and Aaron

0:14

Walter bring you conversations with inspiring

0:16

creative thinkers like John Cleese and

0:18

David Sedaris, people who bring design

0:20

and technology together like Tony Fadal,

0:23

co-inventor of the iPhone and the

0:25

iPod. So far, some standout episodes

0:27

for me have been when they

0:29

talk to John Cleese of Monty Python

0:31

about creativity. That is one of my favorite

0:33

topics and one of my favorite people. Then

0:36

also one of my favorite musicians,

0:38

Tycho, about his creative process. And

0:40

they talk with Seth Godin about

0:42

how creativity is an act of

0:44

generosity. I've always been fascinated by

0:46

design. The creativity behind it, the

0:48

implementation of it, both to improve

0:50

our lives from a functionality and

0:52

user interface standpoint, also from an

0:55

artful, bringing beauty into the world

0:57

approach. So whether you're a design-curious

0:59

person like me or a design

1:01

pro, Design Better is a great listen

1:03

that inspires and informs. Subscribe

1:06

to the Design Better podcast at

1:08

designbetterpodcast.com or in your favorite podcast

1:10

app like the one you're using

1:13

right now. Hello

1:30

and welcome back to Beyond the To-Do

1:32

List, a podcast about productivity. I'm

1:34

your host, Eric Fischer. And this week

1:37

we are revisiting a conversation I had

1:39

with Tiago Forte a while ago. Tiago

1:42

is an expert in productivity, has a great

1:45

newsletter, is also an author. You've

1:47

probably heard of his book, Building a Second

1:50

Brain, as well as the follow-up, The Para

1:52

Method, which is built off of and out

1:54

of that first book, Building a Second Brain. And there's

1:56

a reason that I thought to revisit that.

2:00

revisit this conversation. We've been pulling

2:02

at a thread when it comes

2:04

to communication, both internally and externally

2:06

and clarity of thought,

2:09

clarity of presentation. And

2:11

that even ties into recent conversations we've

2:13

had with AI. Because in order to

2:15

get AI to do anything, you have

2:17

to be clear in your communication with

2:20

it and your expectation, proper expectation, I

2:22

would even say, of what it can

2:24

do and can't do, but also how

2:26

you can be better communicating to it,

2:28

with it, to get the results you

2:30

want. All of that is

2:32

supported by Tiago's concept of building a second

2:35

brain. And in this episode, we talk about

2:37

that. He explains what a second brain is,

2:40

how having an external system

2:42

to store your important information

2:44

from to-dos to creative ideas,

2:46

frees your mind for higher

2:48

level thinking that we should

2:50

be doing, and not just AI, I firmly

2:52

believe in that, and how

2:55

his code methodology, which is

2:57

capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing,

2:59

transforms the way that you

3:01

manage your personal knowledge and

3:03

make connections. And then also

3:06

talking about the real world

3:08

benefits of this and how

3:10

it leads to improved decision

3:12

making, improved creativity, so

3:14

that you have better project

3:16

management, greater efficiency. And I think

3:19

you're going to find that as you dig into

3:21

this conversation with Tiago, you're going to want to

3:23

figure out how to create your second brain or

3:25

if you already have tips on

3:27

how you can improve it. So

3:29

enjoy this revisiting of this conversation

3:31

with Tiago Forte. Well,

3:35

this week, it is my privilege

3:37

to welcome to the show Tiago

3:39

Forte. Tiago, welcome to

3:42

Beyond the to-do list. Thanks, Eric.

3:44

I have been listening for years and I'm

3:46

a big fan. It's really cool to be

3:48

here. That's awesome. So that's the way to

3:50

flatter somebody right there. Hey, I've been listening

3:52

to your podcast, podcasters, especially like hearing that.

3:57

Oh my gosh. Well, I've been following you for a while too.

3:59

And... And you're in the productivity world as

4:01

well. You have this brand new book out called

4:03

Building a Second Brain. It's been highly anticipated. In

4:06

fact, I actually know there was a joke out

4:08

there somewhere. One of my friends on Twitter was

4:10

saying, hey, I need this, this, and this, and

4:12

this. And I said, sounds like you need Tiago's

4:15

new book coming out. And he said, actually, my

4:17

friend already is a super follower of him and

4:19

has been coaching me through certain things. I'm like,

4:21

okay, okay. I always just kind of playing around,

4:23

but you're being serious. Yeah. If

4:26

you're in that niche, the algorithms know

4:29

that you are interested in productivity. I think

4:31

you're not going to be able to avoid hearing of

4:33

it. That's

4:35

totally true. And the thing is, and

4:37

I've heard this by other productivity people,

4:40

they've said this kind of

4:43

analogy or, you know, there's a

4:45

camaraderie, there's a symbiosis maybe of

4:48

your book, Building a Second Brain,

4:50

a proven method to organize your

4:52

digital life and unlock your creative

4:54

potential. I've heard people talk about

4:56

and reference this book as a

4:59

more modern version in a sense of

5:01

getting things done. How do you feel about that?

5:03

I mean, I'm happy with that framing.

5:05

I'd be proud to make a fraction

5:08

of the impact that GTV made. Yeah.

5:10

Well, same here. And I think that's the

5:12

thing is like, okay, so we're talking second brain. Obviously,

5:15

that needs definition before we go

5:17

much further. So let's talk about

5:20

what is a second brain and

5:22

then let's follow it up with why do we

5:24

need one? I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean something

5:26

to a lot of people. Now productivity

5:29

people, we've been kind of thinking about it for

5:31

a long time and thinking, you know, back in

5:33

the Evernote days where it just came out,

5:35

Evernote's not got the same, I don't know,

5:37

reputation they used to have, although they've been

5:39

rebounding here and there, you know, in their

5:41

whole mascot thing of an elephant that never

5:44

forgets. This is not just dumping things into

5:46

somewhere like Evernote and leaving it there. I'll

5:48

let you explain it. So what is a

5:50

second brain? Why do we need one? Yes.

5:53

Okay. Let's start at

5:55

the beginning. A second brain is my term for

5:58

a system. It's a. a technology

6:00

system that lives outside of your

6:03

head. That's the important part. It's

6:05

outside your brain and it's in the

6:08

concrete physical world and it's

6:10

a place where you put all

6:12

of the information that matters most to you.

6:14

It's kind of hard to wrap your head

6:16

around how many different kinds of information that

6:18

can include. It's simple

6:20

things like to-dos, reminders,

6:23

things on your calendar, all

6:25

the way to more, I'd

6:27

say creative or divergent or

6:30

imaginative things like little

6:32

snippets, quotes you read in books

6:34

or heard on podcasts. It

6:37

could be imagery, photos, graphics,

6:39

screenshots of websites. It

6:41

could be examples of business case

6:43

studies. It could be examples of

6:45

design, examples of marketing headlines. It

6:47

could be stories. It could

6:49

be theories, frameworks. This kind of depends on the

6:52

kind of work that you do. But whatever kind

6:54

of work you do, think about the output that

6:56

you produce. What is the thing at the

6:58

end of the vault, your day, the end of your week that

7:00

you output? Well whatever that

7:02

output is, you also need inputs. You

7:05

need fuel. You need creative

7:07

raw material that becomes the

7:09

building blocks, the raw material

7:11

for whatever it is you create. And

7:13

your second brain is the repository where all those things

7:15

live. So to go to

7:18

David Allen, he actually has a quote. You

7:20

actually used this quote in the book, in

7:22

the beginning of the book. Your mind is

7:24

for having ideas, not holding them. And I

7:26

instantly resonated with this thought. Because

7:29

I'd had pieces of it in

7:31

the past, not necessarily a full blown

7:33

system, but at least a place where

7:36

I was readily capturing

7:38

things. Even before I knew what productivity

7:40

was, I was a junior hire who

7:42

was carrying around a little pocket kind

7:44

of flip open notebook like you'd see

7:46

a reporter do in old timey movies

7:48

or whatever and pull out a clicky

7:50

pen and just write something down and

7:52

capture it. Now capturing isn't

7:54

the only piece. It's not just

7:57

about, again, like I alluded to earlier, it's not

7:59

just about capturing and throwing things away

8:01

for later, although that's part of it.

8:04

Why do we need a second brain? Yes,

8:06

yeah, great question. And I encourage

8:08

people, you know, just a little

8:10

disclaimer, this world of second brain

8:12

building, also known as PKM, where

8:14

it stands for Personal Knowledge Management,

8:17

can so easily become a kind

8:19

of infinite, like,

8:21

rabbit trail, where you

8:23

sort of lose yourself in

8:27

endless kind of optimizing and trying

8:29

out different apps and kind of

8:31

reorganizing it again, it

8:34

can become kind of an unhealthy obsession.

8:36

And so I'm always kind of warning

8:38

people away from that first, but second,

8:41

everything that I talk about is about actionability.

8:43

And this is really the answer to your

8:45

question. There are reasons to collect

8:47

content for its own sake. You know, think

8:49

of journaling, like there are benefits to writing

8:51

things down in the first place, which is

8:54

fine. But what I really focus on is

8:56

a different kind of benefit,

8:58

which is how you're able to take

9:00

action, better action, more

9:02

effective action, faster action, more powerful,

9:04

leveraged action, because of the content

9:07

in your second brain. So for

9:09

some people, that means making better

9:11

decisions, right, if you're an

9:13

executive, a senior leader. What if you

9:15

could increase the quality of your decisions by 20%?

9:18

That seems hard. How do you just increase the

9:20

quality of your decisions? Well, I found

9:23

in my own business, it depends on my inputs. I

9:25

just need to collect better examples. I

9:28

need to talk to people in my

9:30

industry. I need to find, you know,

9:32

case studies of people who made a

9:34

similar decision and either had success or

9:36

failure. So you can think about decision-making.

9:38

You can think about project management. You

9:41

can think about creative work, writing, designing,

9:43

painting, music. You can think about efficiency,

9:45

making systems more efficient, making them more

9:47

user-friendly. I think the diversity of kinds

9:49

of ways you can use the contents

9:51

in your second brain is so wide

9:53

that that actually is a challenge in

9:56

itself. You have to find like

9:58

one concrete example that really means something. something

10:00

to you, which is why I'm kind of

10:02

always just touching on as many examples as

10:04

I can. But that one first use case

10:06

is likely different for each person. Like

10:09

as a first use case, there's also in the

10:11

term thrown around quick win. Yes. Again,

10:14

to go back to David Allen, it's this

10:16

whole trusted system. A system is one thing.

10:18

A trusted system, one that you're actually going

10:20

to put stuff in and use is really

10:22

the key. The linchpin is that trust. And

10:25

so someone wants to know, okay, I'm

10:27

going to build a second brain. Okay, I kind

10:29

of get the why behind it, but now I

10:31

need to know not just the how to do

10:33

it, but the fact of how do

10:36

I build it slash then how do I use

10:38

it? Like how a second brain works, in other

10:40

words, you need trust to trust the system, but

10:42

then that trust kind of folds in on itself

10:44

and compounds, you know, like interest in builds. That's

10:47

an angle that I think not a lot of people appreciate

10:49

is like, trust, trust is

10:52

a very personal thing. It's

10:54

not a formula. It's not just follow these three

10:56

steps. You know, think about people you trust. It

10:59

takes time. It takes

11:01

having some shared experiences takes really seeing

11:03

that person's character, seeing, you know, who

11:05

they are under fire, or who they

11:07

are under stress or who they are

11:10

when you're under stress when you're in

11:12

crisis. And I kind of a funny way,

11:14

I guess this is appropriate. I see my second brain as

11:16

a person. It has ideas.

11:18

It has sometimes I almost think it

11:20

has feelings. And

11:23

so you're not, you know, building

11:25

an app is one thing, but that's the

11:27

equivalent to like meeting someone at a bar.

11:29

Okay, it's a good first contact doesn't

11:31

mean you have a trusted system. It

11:34

takes some some working with it,

11:36

it takes some experiences, it takes time. And

11:38

that's, by the way, why I wrote a

11:40

book and have a course, it's like there

11:42

is a process here. There's a process of

11:44

personalizing your second brain, customizing it, trying out

11:46

different experiments, you know, one way of using

11:48

a second brain might work fantastically well for

11:51

me or for someone, but my fall completely

11:53

flat for you. So you have to find

11:55

your own relationship to it. Yeah.

11:58

Well, okay. So you just described the. building

12:00

of it and the learning to trust

12:02

it and that it's a process. It's

12:04

not something that's instantaneous. For a lot

12:06

of people out there, like with all

12:08

these other productivity, not just productivity system,

12:10

but tool, they hesitate to start in

12:12

yet another tool because they don't

12:15

want to spend time. In other

12:17

words, one of the bogged down things of

12:19

productivity is the setting up of the thing

12:21

instead of the actual doing of the work,

12:23

right? So it's not just building a second

12:25

brain. It's what benefit does

12:27

it give me? It does the reward, in

12:29

other words, trade off on the time that

12:31

I've spent investing in the creating of the

12:34

second brain. Gosh, this is such

12:36

a good point. This is one of those things.

12:38

I wish I could flip a switch and have

12:40

just everyone understand this. I think you only understand

12:42

it when you go through this process of like

12:44

over engineering, over optimizing, over

12:46

organizing, over collecting. You have to

12:48

kind of feel the pain of

12:51

that and how pointless much of it

12:53

is because yeah, yeah, you're totally right.

12:56

Like setting up your productivity systems is

12:58

the most dangerous

13:00

form of procrastination. It

13:02

is the most tempting pitfall

13:05

because it feels like productivity. I

13:07

mean, it does, right? Like it

13:10

feels very justifiable. It feels rewarding

13:12

even you're getting set up, you're

13:14

creating the perfect environment, you're dotting

13:16

all the I's and crossing all

13:18

the T's. It feels like you

13:20

are increasing your odds of success.

13:23

The thing about it is these are just the

13:25

intermediate steps, right? Just because you do the intermediate

13:27

steps does not mean that the final outcome is

13:29

going to be more successful. And I would even

13:31

say in this world we live in that is

13:33

faster moving than ever, more uncertain

13:35

than ever, like windows of opportunity

13:38

that we're faced with opening close

13:40

so fast in days, weeks, sometimes

13:43

that the biggest danger

13:45

now is actually not having

13:47

the right productivity system. The

13:49

biggest danger is just not acting. It's not

13:52

having the decisiveness, not just taking

13:54

action when the opportunity arises. Just

14:00

match with Indeed. Ditch that busy

14:02

work. Instead, use Indeed for scheduling,

14:04

screening, and messaging so you can

14:06

connect with candidates faster. Leveraging

14:09

over 140 million qualifications and preferences

14:11

every day, Indeed's matching engine is

14:13

constantly learning from your preferences. So

14:16

the more you use Indeed, the

14:18

better it gets. And Indeed

14:20

doesn't just help you hire faster. 93%

14:23

of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest

14:26

quality matches compared to other job sites,

14:28

according to a recent Indeed survey. And

14:30

in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 hires

14:34

were made on Indeed, according to

14:36

Indeed data worldwide. Get unparalleled access

14:38

to job seekers and over 350

14:42

million monthly unique visitors globally,

14:44

according to Indeed data, and an extended

14:46

reach through Glassdoor. And listeners of this

14:48

show will get a $75 sponsored job

14:50

credit. To get

14:53

your job's more visibility at

14:55

indeed.com/to-do list. Just go to

14:58

indeed.com/to-do list right now and

15:00

support our show by saying you heard about Indeed

15:02

on this podcast. indeed.com/to-do list.

15:04

Terms and conditions apply. Need

15:06

to hire? You need Indeed.

15:09

Let's be honest. No matter what you're

15:12

working on, if you're the organizer and

15:14

you've got to get your team engaged,

15:16

it can be hard to run a

15:18

meeting, get that team involved, assign next

15:20

steps in a place where your teammates

15:22

want to participate. But that's what Miro

15:25

helps you do. Miro is the visual

15:27

collaboration platform that helps you run effective

15:29

engaging and actionable retrospectives. Miro helps

15:31

you keep your team engaged and

15:34

accountable while identifying and solving hurdles

15:36

together. And we get it. The

15:39

same issues can pop up over and

15:41

over. But Miro makes sure that your

15:43

team members voices are heard. This allows

15:45

you to innovate faster. You can feel

15:47

stronger. And from project to project, they're

15:49

able to express their ideas. Let's face

15:51

it. Not everyone likes to

15:53

write. But with Miro, you can share images

15:55

and videos and stickies and graphs. Your teammates

15:57

can express their ideas in their own way.

16:00

way. There are hundreds of templates and

16:02

activities to help you mix things up

16:04

also, keep it interesting from week to

16:06

week, and there are great ways to

16:09

summarize notes from a retro with AI

16:11

capabilities that can deliver key themes in

16:13

seconds. So instead of taking hours to

16:15

review, you're able to pull out consistent

16:17

themes in record time. So whether you

16:20

work in product design, engineering, UX, agile,

16:22

or marketing, bring your team together on

16:24

Miro. Your first three Miro boards are

16:26

free when you sign up today at

16:29

miro.com. That's three free boards

16:31

at m-i-r-o.com. I

16:35

want to jump into the superpowers of

16:37

a second brain because I think those

16:40

are really the convincing bullet list, if

16:42

there is one, for not

16:44

just the why, but the long-term

16:46

investment, what that payout ends up

16:48

being. And I think it also

16:50

helps people relate in a sense

16:52

as to some of the benefits

16:55

they've experienced in previous kind of

16:57

endeavors when it comes to either

16:59

like journaling or capturing or other

17:01

productivity related topics like those because,

17:04

like for example, first one of the

17:06

superpowers of the second brain, making our

17:08

ideas concrete. In other words, externalizing something,

17:10

getting it out of your head, right?

17:13

I mean this is the whole David Allen thing

17:15

is like your quote of his was saying, your

17:17

mind is for having ideas not for holding them.

17:19

Well we're overloaded with data, so if we're trying

17:21

to hold that in our brains at all times,

17:23

like I do have and I'm willing to let

17:25

it go, but I have a ton of useless

17:28

information about which actors have played which roles in

17:30

what things. And yes,

17:32

I'm constantly on IMDB because I'm always

17:34

curious, but I'm willing to let it

17:36

go. I know that it's out there

17:39

in IMDB and I trust that system.

17:41

It's a really kind of weird metaphor

17:43

here for this or analogy, but

17:45

what I'm saying is by externalizing

17:47

it, much like say journaling, you

17:50

get it out of your head and

17:52

that can be thoughts, that can be feelings,

17:55

that can be whatever. And you can go

17:57

back and you can even reread those and

17:59

make connections. If time has passed and

18:01

it's been a year, I actually did this recently. I looked

18:03

back at journal entry from a year ago last summer and

18:05

I thought, oh my gosh, I've come so far, and

18:07

yet not in other ways. But to be

18:09

able to acknowledge that is some

18:12

of the superpowers. So getting back to,

18:14

there are four superpowers of the second

18:16

brain and one of them

18:18

is making ideas concrete from

18:20

externalizing things. Do you have more thoughts

18:22

on that specific bullet? And then let's

18:24

talk about the other three. Because I think

18:27

convincing somebody as to the investment on

18:29

a second brain really stems from

18:31

these superpowers. Yeah, I think

18:33

so. I do have many thoughts.

18:36

You have a whole book of them and more.

18:38

Yeah, but even more than was included there, the

18:41

book is always just like the 10%

18:44

that didn't get cut. Gosh, I think

18:46

this is so underrated. It's so underrated.

18:48

Even we've been told, oh,

18:50

you should journal, you should. Even

18:52

like cognitive behavioral therapy is a lot

18:55

about externalizing your thoughts. We still have

18:57

not fully discovered the power of getting

18:59

the ideas and thoughts in our head,

19:01

which when they're there

19:03

are jumbled and messy and confronting

19:06

and triggering and anxiety provoking and

19:08

just very unclear. They're just sort

19:10

of like these vague clouds of

19:13

thoughts. Getting them out of our

19:15

head. This is the original technological

19:18

revolution known as writing, that

19:21

we are still grappling with the impact of

19:23

it millennia later in our personal lives. There's

19:25

some fascinating studies. I think I cited them

19:27

in my book that just the act of

19:29

writing things down, like let's start just right

19:32

there. Let's say you don't even save

19:34

them. Yes. Just the act of writing

19:36

it down. In that very moment, there

19:38

is a lot of evidence that it

19:40

improves your mental health, your physical health,

19:42

your blood pressure, your ability. They did

19:44

studies on people who had been laid

19:46

off, their ability to get a new

19:48

job, their ability to survive personal crises,

19:50

all these different impacts just from writing

19:52

it down, even if no one, including

19:54

themselves, ever read what they had written

19:56

down. Yeah, it's just

19:58

that benefit of expiring. externalizing thing.

20:00

And in fact, that's why I love podcasting so much, confession.

20:04

I love talking out loud,

20:07

getting it out in front of not just

20:09

other people like you here listening and others

20:11

listening to this file weeks from now. I

20:14

like hearing myself talk. No,

20:17

it's worse than that. It's better

20:19

than that, I should say. It

20:21

comes down to sometimes I've got to

20:23

externalize it verbally and then

20:25

listen back to it. And then I'm

20:27

like, oh, I didn't even know I

20:29

thought that consciously, right? Until I externalized

20:31

it and could turn it around, metaphorically

20:34

in my hands or on paper or digitally.

20:36

That's just one of the benefits here is

20:38

just get it out of your head so

20:41

you can actually work with it. Now that's

20:43

not to say you're not using your brain

20:45

to work with it, but now it doesn't

20:47

just live in your brain. Yes,

20:50

exactly. Only when it's outside your head

20:52

can you start to do things like

20:54

analyze it, evaluate it objectively, not just

20:57

subjectively within your own mind. You can

20:59

improve it. You can edit it.

21:02

It's almost like editing your thoughts and

21:04

not to mention other benefits, like you can share it. You

21:06

can get feedback on it. You can

21:08

show it to someone else and sort of meld

21:10

their thinking with your thinking and make it greater

21:13

than anything either of you could have come up

21:15

with by yourselves. There's a kind of magic that

21:18

happens when you externalize, when you express something

21:20

out into the world, it takes on a

21:22

life of its own. And once it has

21:25

a life of its own, it can learn,

21:27

it can grow, it can improve, it can

21:29

expand. None of this is really possible as

21:31

long as it's stuck in your head. Well, one

21:33

of the other key pieces then is

21:35

that as you're externalizing it and

21:37

you can see it, you start to see connections,

21:41

either to things that you've already been

21:43

thinking about or things

21:45

that are gonna come down the pike

21:48

later that you're not even aware

21:50

of are coming, but because you've

21:52

externalized this and then in turn

21:54

externalize something else, there's an association,

21:56

almost a mind mapping, but you

21:58

have to have it outside of your brain to

22:00

start to see those lines connect. Absolutely.

22:02

That's what it is. There's two other

22:04

ones. One is incubation or I like

22:06

to call this crock pot thinking. Yeah.

22:10

Like, you know, it's like it's not microwave thinking. It's

22:12

not even oven thinking. It's crock pot. You set it

22:14

up and then you let it sit there all

22:16

day. And then when you come back

22:18

at the end, all the ingredients are melded together

22:20

into something amazing. So. Exactly.

22:23

It's the slow burn for ideas

22:25

instead of food. Yes. Yes.

22:29

And then the last superpower is this

22:32

idea that by one,

22:34

externalizing things to seeing the

22:36

connection between those ideas and

22:39

seeing those ideas grow

22:41

and morph and become

22:43

curated and or

22:45

polished over time, you end

22:47

up with your own perspective

22:50

that is, you know, sharper,

22:52

more clarity driven. Exactly. Yeah.

22:55

What was the wording that I used in the book? Remind me.

22:57

From sharpening your unique perspective. Oh,

23:00

yes. I believe it's close

23:02

to what it is. Sorry. My

23:04

first brain has atrophied because I depend so much

23:06

on my. Yeah,

23:10

this I think is the last one because it's kind

23:12

of the most subtle is we feel

23:15

like I mean, when you go

23:17

online, especially you're just awash in other people's

23:19

perspectives. Right. Like every

23:22

time you log on and

23:24

you just get pummeled from

23:26

every direction by the opinions,

23:29

the hot takes, you

23:31

know, the the perspectives of all these

23:34

people, many of whom you don't know,

23:36

don't care about, many of whom are

23:38

not qualified or are disqualified, many of

23:40

whom are just starting off what they

23:43

thought last minute. There's little consideration, little

23:45

kind of self reflection. And

23:47

so it's easy, I think, to kind of just like

23:50

it's kind of like stepping out into a blizzard.

23:52

You just kind of accept that you're just going

23:54

to be pummeled from all sides by opinions. But

23:57

I think what's what's hard to and important to grasp is that

23:59

you perspective matters. Your

24:01

perspective, your collection of life experiences,

24:04

the things you've seen and done

24:06

and experienced and felt and learned

24:08

give you a point of view.

24:10

Maybe it's a point of view

24:12

on the world. Maybe it's a point of view

24:14

on your industry. Maybe it's the point of view

24:16

on your organization or your team, or at least

24:18

just about your own work in your own life

24:21

that no one else has. No

24:23

one else shares. Google can't provide

24:26

that same perspective. And that is largely

24:28

the value that we offer as professionals.

24:31

You know, like it used to be

24:33

about having specific specialized knowledge. It's not

24:35

really about that anymore. All knowledge is

24:37

basically democratized. So what does

24:40

an actual living, breathing human being

24:42

contribute? Now that everything is

24:44

public, everything is open source practically. It's

24:46

a way of thinking. It's

24:48

like an algorithm. It is a lens that

24:50

they are able to put up to the

24:53

world and make decisions,

24:55

take actions, discover insights that no

24:57

machine, not yet at least, is

25:00

able to see. And

25:02

I think the thing is, is that, you

25:04

know, we hear a lot of talk where

25:06

people are like, you know, they hesitate to

25:09

start a blog or to start a business

25:11

or start a podcast because they think somebody

25:14

else is already out there talking about not just

25:16

on that medium that I want to do it

25:18

on. They're talking about the exact same topic that

25:20

I want to talk about. And this

25:22

is a way to have

25:24

a path forward and create

25:27

that thing and kickstart that whatever it

25:29

is with your own

25:31

unique perspective, because you've taken the

25:33

time to capture and

25:35

externalize and then create

25:37

new associations and let things incubate. But

25:40

then you've sharpened your unique perspective. And

25:42

then it truly is unique. Even if

25:44

you're doing a spin on something somebody

25:47

else has already done, it's uniquely you.

25:50

Exactly. And it's always a spin. There's nothing

25:52

new under the sun. No

25:55

one has ever come up with anything original since,

25:57

you know, 2000 BC. Everything is a spin. spin

26:00

off or remix. I tend to

26:02

use that term. This idea, originality

26:04

is really overvalued. The ideas

26:07

that actually are successful that actually make an

26:09

impact are not original ones. They're ones that

26:11

are just a little tweak, a little spin

26:13

off of something that already exists. There's something

26:15

else here that I really want people to

26:17

get. I think sometimes people

26:20

say, oh, the second brain thing or

26:22

I don't know, just all this software

26:24

for like content, you know, management and

26:26

content creation. That's, that's great for bloggers

26:28

and podcasters and YouTubers, you know, the online

26:30

creators of the world. And it is, I mean,

26:33

definitely good for them. But what

26:35

I think people don't understand is the online

26:37

creators are just the forefront of what everyone

26:39

is going to be doing, or is already

26:41

doing in the next few years. If

26:43

you are giving presentations to a team at

26:45

work, what do you think that is? That's

26:48

content that you created. If you

26:50

are, you know, writing internal memos,

26:52

if you're writing like long emails

26:54

that explain something or teach something or

26:56

tell a story, or

26:58

make a pitch or are persuasive, that

27:01

is all content creation. That's all any

27:03

of us are doing is creating content

27:05

and sending it through various means to

27:07

various people to try to influence them.

27:09

So given that all knowledge workers are

27:11

virtually all content creators, don't you think

27:13

you could do that better? Could

27:16

that content be more effective? Could it be more

27:18

succinct? Could it be more convincing? I

27:20

mean, I really think all people who work

27:22

on computers and even beyond that need to

27:25

think about what is their point of view?

27:27

What is their opinion? How are they going

27:29

to influence others to take on that point

27:31

of view? That's the future of work. Selling

27:35

a little or a lot? Shopify

27:38

helps you do your thing. However, you

27:40

chiching, Shopify is the global commerce platform

27:43

that helps you sell at every stage

27:45

of your business. Shopify helps you turn

27:47

browsers into buyers with the internet's best

27:50

converting checkout, 36% better

27:52

on average compared to other leading

27:54

commerce platforms and sell more with

27:56

less effort thanks to Shopify Magic,

27:58

your AI powered all. Star. Shopify

28:00

powers 10% of all e-commerce in

28:03

the US and Shopify is the

28:05

global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and

28:07

Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs

28:09

of every size across 175 countries.

28:13

Plus Shopify's award-winning help is there to

28:15

support your success every step of the

28:17

way. Because businesses that grow, grow with

28:19

Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per

28:22

month trial period at

28:24

shopify.com/beyond all lowercase. Go

28:26

to shopify.com slash

28:28

beyond now to grow your business no

28:30

matter what stage you're in. shopify.com slash

28:34

beyond. And

28:38

people may be familiar with this concept

28:40

without knowing it. They may be familiar

28:43

with a flavor of this that's been

28:45

around for a very long time as

28:47

referred to as the commonplace book.

28:49

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah,

28:52

you know, I'm a huge fan of history.

28:54

I think a lot of people open this

28:56

book thinking, oh, a second brain. I'm going

28:58

to hear about a lot of futuristic, you

29:00

know, artificial intelligence, sci-fi stuff. And

29:03

instead, most of the book is history. I think

29:05

the history is, is informative.

29:07

It tells us what has come before. Like I said, there's

29:09

nothing new under the sun. So when

29:12

I was researching this book and the

29:14

course that came before it, I wanted

29:16

to know what has come before. What

29:18

did human beings do in other periods

29:20

of history where they face information overload,

29:23

where they faced a tremendous amount of

29:25

change and uncertainty. And it turns out

29:27

I was surprised. I was amazed to

29:29

hear there's such a close parallel that

29:32

happened a couple hundred years ago, which

29:34

is in the early years of the

29:36

industrial revolution, you know, 18th, 19th centuries,

29:38

some even as far back as the

29:40

17th century, intellectuals and people

29:43

who were influential during the, as far

29:45

back as the Renaissance with Leonardo da

29:47

Vinci, but more so during the enlightenment

29:49

and industrial revolution, they would keep these

29:52

books called commonplace books. They

29:54

were like collages. They were like

29:56

scrapbooks, but for making sense of the

29:58

world, they would write in a little quotes from

30:00

books that they read or things they

30:02

heard in conversation, they would put a

30:05

drawing of something from nature, a

30:07

newspaper clipping, a leaf that

30:09

they found. It was this kind

30:11

of place that was fully under their

30:13

control, you know, that wasn't the government

30:16

or the church or some external institution

30:18

telling them what to do. A

30:20

private, personal place where they made the rules

30:22

and they could put in whatever they wanted

30:24

to put in there to make sense of

30:26

their world. And it's so

30:28

telling to me and illuminating that we are

30:31

now finding ourselves in the same place

30:33

with the same desire to have a

30:35

personal sense making tool, except now we

30:37

have these godlike powers with technology that

30:39

we can do it more easily, we

30:41

can do it faster, we can do

30:43

it in a way that accelerates our

30:45

careers and our businesses. It's really just

30:47

the whole circle coming back around to

30:49

the same place. There you go. That's

30:52

the kind of Evernote analogy there. I

30:54

think that, again, it goes way beyond

30:56

that. In fact, you know, it goes

30:58

beyond just capturing because you can't

31:00

just capture it. You can't just, as I alluded

31:02

to before, Evernote got a bad rap because a

31:05

lot of people would just dump things into it.

31:07

And yeah, you can search through there, which

31:09

is a benefit of digital over analog unless

31:12

you've got a really good organizational system for

31:14

analog. In fact, I like doing kind of

31:16

a capturing brain dump, you know, go to

31:18

a coffee shop, sit there and sip on

31:21

coffee and have just a legal pad and

31:23

just a physical pen or pencil and

31:26

do that. But the problem is, is

31:28

you probably want to not just capture

31:30

it, but then put it into something.

31:33

So I think we probably should move into

31:35

the phase of, you know, okay, I'm sold.

31:37

I hear the superpowers. They're awesome. I've

31:39

done maybe flavors of this in the past. But

31:41

how do I get started with what

31:44

Tiago is saying in

31:46

terms of actual execution

31:49

of not just creation, but maintaining of

31:51

a second brain? Yes, that is

31:53

the question. You know, I have

31:55

a YouTube video that kind of walks

31:57

people through this thing that I recommend, which is

31:59

that. 30-day experiment. Give it

32:01

30 days. 30 days to

32:04

test some of my claims. And

32:07

essentially, I'll kind of summarize the main gist

32:09

of it is boot up, download,

32:11

open, whatever notes app

32:14

you are either already used or already

32:16

have. The amazing thing is you can

32:18

just very much use the built-in default

32:20

notes app on your phone or your

32:22

tablet or your computer. On iOS, that's

32:24

Apple Notes. Android has different

32:26

ones depending on which version of Android

32:28

you use. But that's the incredible thing

32:30

is virtually every one of the several

32:32

billion devices in the world has some way

32:34

to take notes. So you can just start right there.

32:37

Perfect. What I would recommend people

32:39

do is to just create a

32:41

few just basic notes. One

32:44

for your to-dos, right? You don't

32:46

need in the beginning a dedicated task manager

32:48

if you have no experience with this. Just

32:50

have, could just be a single note where

32:52

you just write a little list of half

32:54

a dozen or a dozen things you have

32:56

to do. That's already externalizing, right?

32:58

Second, you want to create a

33:01

note for ideas, right?

33:03

Eventually you can use my Para system

33:05

and have different categories and a whole

33:07

workflow for this. But I'm telling you,

33:09

just put my claims to the test.

33:11

Just do a little experiment. Have one

33:13

note where when an idea occurs to you, you just write

33:16

it down. You can also set up

33:18

things like Siri to work with your notes or different

33:20

voice assistants or different mobile operating systems have these things

33:22

like these little workflow apps where you can add like

33:24

a widget to the lock screen to make it a

33:26

little bit easier. So you don't have to like go

33:29

all the way into your phone and open up the

33:31

app. It does take a little bit of setup to

33:33

find just two or three of the easiest ways to

33:35

capture. But just start with a couple notes

33:37

like that, things to do and ideas. Capture

33:40

them over the course of a

33:42

month. See if you already start

33:44

to feel this lightning of the

33:46

mental load, right? Most people, if

33:48

this is something that they are interested

33:50

in that fits with them already start

33:52

to feel more clarity or peace of

33:54

mind. They don't feel as stressed. They

33:56

start to basically rely on this

33:59

tool as an example. of their brain, which

34:01

it is, which frees up space in their first

34:03

brain to just either be

34:05

more present or be more relaxed or finish

34:08

work a little bit earlier. The way that

34:10

you cash out those benefits depends

34:12

on you. But I think what

34:14

makes all the second brain stuff so promising is

34:17

that it's not like, okay, spend six months or

34:19

a year doing all this difficult, heavy labor, and

34:21

then one day you'll get the benefits. Like

34:24

we were talking about before, the benefits begin

34:26

immediately. They begin the second

34:28

that you start writing. And so I say

34:30

start from there and then just expand as

34:33

much as and to whatever extent it makes

34:35

sense for you. Obviously, it goes

34:37

beyond just capturing. It goes into organizing.

34:39

What kind of organizational process is, obviously,

34:42

it's got to suit the person and

34:44

we're all unique, but what are some

34:46

of the different ways that you suggest

34:48

people start to organize what they've captured?

34:51

Yeah, yeah, good. So I have this

34:54

methodology as code, C-O-D-E, which stands for

34:56

kind of the four stages that ideas

34:58

that you capture move through. The C

35:01

is capture, O is organize, D is

35:03

distill, E is express. So

35:05

you're totally right. I tend to encourage

35:07

novices to capture. Just see what

35:10

it's like to save things. But then you're totally

35:12

right. They reach this point where they sort of

35:14

amassed a

35:16

big steaming pile of notes and they're like,

35:19

what do I do with this? And that's

35:21

where the O comes in, the second stage.

35:24

And I have a framework for this called

35:27

PARA, which stands for P-A-R-A, which

35:29

is projects, areas, resources, archives,

35:32

which is actually the single most kind of easy

35:34

to adopt and popular thing that

35:36

I've written about in my whole

35:38

career. And it's a very simple

35:40

but also actionable way of organizing actually any

35:43

kind of information. You can use it to

35:45

organize your notes app, but also the power

35:47

of it is that it's based on a

35:49

fundamental principle that applies everywhere. So you can

35:52

use it to organize your Google drive, the

35:55

documents folder in your computer, even

35:57

project management apps. I've seen people organize

35:59

their. calendar this way, their email. It's

36:01

like if you ever wanted just one

36:04

organizing system for your entire digital life,

36:06

that is para. And what para does

36:08

is have you organize things not as

36:11

people usually do erroneously by

36:13

these huge categories, right? Like

36:15

people will tend to say they'll have a notebook

36:17

or a folder with like business or

36:20

like ideas or quotes

36:23

or you know, like basically

36:25

organizing things in these giant

36:27

buckets that are so big

36:30

that think about in the future when you

36:32

have just a little bit of time in

36:34

between meetings and you're going in to retrieve

36:37

something, you don't have time to search through

36:39

potentially dozens, hundreds of notes in a gigantic

36:41

folder called like psychology or something. What you

36:43

do have time for is to go into

36:46

a folder that's organized for one single project.

36:48

And this is the P in para, which

36:50

is the most important part. Create one notebook

36:52

or folder or tag or whatever it's called in

36:55

your app for each active project,

36:57

which is inherently limited by the way, no

36:59

human being really has more than five, 10,

37:02

maybe 12 or 15 active projects

37:04

at any given time. And then when you go

37:06

and save content from either your

37:08

inner thoughts or the outer world, just

37:11

ask one question about where to put

37:13

it, which is what active project is

37:15

this most relevant to? That's

37:17

all you can afford actually is just answering

37:19

one question per note. And I think the

37:21

most important question is how am I going

37:23

to put this into action which most often

37:26

is in a project? Got it. Okay,

37:29

that's a great question. The thing is, is that

37:31

we're not asking that question. We're literally just, oh,

37:33

save that for later, save that for later, or,

37:36

you know, read it later type things. That's why

37:38

those kinds of, you know, you're scrolling through social

37:40

and you hit read it later, send

37:42

it to my read it later app, whatever that is.

37:44

Instapaper was one of the popular ones for a long

37:46

time, pocket even. But the thing is, is that we

37:49

end up throwing so many things in there that it's

37:51

like, well, we don't end up doing anything with it.

37:53

Honestly, because we didn't organize it as we threw it

37:55

in there. For example, one of the things that we

37:57

try to do with our recycling in our.

38:00

our closet upstairs with our kitchen is we've

38:02

got different buckets in that closet. And so

38:04

you have to ask the question, wait, this

38:06

is an aluminum can, so which

38:08

bucket does this go in? By having quick,

38:10

simple, easy choices, you look at your hand,

38:12

what is it? Throw it in. It

38:15

goes into the appropriate bucket. That way,

38:17

the sorting part of things is already

38:19

done to a certain extent. There's

38:22

still more to do in the garage before we take it to

38:24

the recycling center, but still, that first step

38:26

gets us thinking in the right direction. Exactly.

38:29

I love metaphors that come from physical

38:31

organizing because they're so concrete, right? The

38:33

problem with the digital stuff is it's

38:35

also abstract. So yes, like what do

38:37

you do? You sort of move things

38:39

around the house. I always think of

38:41

them as like little staging areas, right?

38:44

It's like, you know, something as simple

38:46

as your hand-proper, right? You don't, every

38:48

time you take a shirt off that

38:50

now needs to be washed, trek out

38:52

to the garage or whatever, laundry room

38:54

to like individually place each sock in

38:56

there. That would be very

38:58

inefficient. You

39:01

have that staging area called the hamper where

39:03

you can quickly collect, make that one decision,

39:05

which is, is this dirty or you're not?

39:07

Throw it in the hamper. Then at a

39:09

separate time, you sort of batch process. So

39:11

you unmask, bring down or pick up this

39:13

whole hamper and move it all at once

39:15

to the washing machine. And then you go

39:17

through the workflow of washing it. But we

39:19

do this all over the house and all

39:21

over our lives when it comes to physical

39:23

stuff. But then in the digital world, suddenly

39:25

we're like, what are the staging areas? What

39:28

are the things that I'm trying to collect in

39:30

one place? What are the workflows? Suddenly it's like

39:32

a complete free for all. Well,

39:35

and I love that metaphor to take it even one

39:37

step further is because then it's based

39:40

on your unique needs, wants, perspectives, et

39:42

cetera, as to when and how long

39:44

you're gonna do the sorting of that

39:46

laundry. If that's a, hey, daily, I

39:48

have all the kids just go and

39:51

take the baskets down and sort them

39:53

real quick. And it takes them 30

39:55

seconds and they feel like it's not

39:57

a chore because it's so light of

39:59

a. and

44:00

distill those six sources, right?

44:03

Which by the way is the perfect way to

44:05

prepare for writing anyway. You wanna load up that

44:07

context into your brain so it's all kind of

44:09

at your mental fingertips. And

44:11

so basically the answer to when

44:13

to distill is as late as

44:15

possible and only when you're

44:17

getting ready to create something. Got

44:19

it. Obviously then the final component

44:21

or the final letter is E for

44:23

express. How does that factor in? So

44:26

express is even kind of a little

44:28

more, it depends, because it depends completely

44:30

on the kind of work that you

44:32

do, right? Like what is

44:35

the cadence at which you need to express?

44:37

If you're a journalist who has a deadline

44:39

every other week, then that's basically built into

44:41

your schedule. You don't have much choice. Other

44:43

people have way more autonomy in when they

44:45

can express. For some people it's every day.

44:48

You know, they might need to, I don't

44:50

know, run a training every day or come

44:53

up with an agenda for a meeting almost

44:55

every day. So you have to kind of

44:57

match it to the specific outcomes and results

44:59

you're trying to create. The good news is

45:01

you can express on any frequency that you

45:03

want. If, only

45:06

if you have the previous three steps

45:08

done, if you have this kind of

45:10

repository already made, ready to go building

45:12

blocks, almost like Legos. You know, imagine

45:15

you have to give a presentation in

45:17

a few days and you have to start

45:19

with a blank slide. Like,

45:21

you know how terrifying this is? You're just like, okay, first

45:24

slide. What should

45:26

I say? It's so terrifying. It's

45:28

so hard. Instead, what

45:30

if you could just go through a

45:32

few of your folders, a few of

45:34

your tags and see imagery and other

45:36

slides you've used in the past and

45:38

ideas from other people's slide presentations and

45:40

facts and statistics and stories. And you

45:43

could start that slide presentation by just

45:45

amassing and pulling together this kind of

45:47

collection of preexisting ideas and just kind

45:49

of remix them in different ways rather

45:51

than starting from nothing. That's what A Second Good Brain is

45:53

about. We all need that. I

45:55

wanna circle back around to the para acronym

45:57

as well. We talked a little bit about...

45:59

about project and areas and resources

46:01

and archives, how do those fit

46:04

in for you in terms of

46:06

this code process? Yes, absolutely.

46:08

So remember that Para is primarily

46:10

about storage, right? You place things

46:12

in a certain place within a

46:14

project, within an area, which is

46:17

just like projects begin and

46:19

end, right, it has a starting point and an

46:21

ending point. Areas are more like parts

46:23

of your life that you have to manage

46:25

ongoingly. So your finances, your health, the different

46:27

responsibilities you have at work, that's the A,

46:30

the first A in Para. R

46:32

is for resources, which is things that are

46:34

neither part of projects or areas, but they

46:36

just kind of find interesting or potentially useful.

46:38

And then archives is everything in cold storage.

46:40

So this is like your, it's like your

46:42

digital filing cabinet. It's the places in your

46:44

digital world where things go. But

46:46

then what code is about? Code is about

46:48

action. Every step of code

46:50

is moving an idea or a piece of

46:53

content to completion. So basically when it's time

46:55

to distill, right, which is the letter after

46:57

O for organized, the way that you're choosing

47:00

what to distill is just looking at Para,

47:02

looking at the four kind of main buckets

47:05

where you have everything, and then kind of

47:07

diving into each of the little categories that

47:09

are most relevant for the task at hand.

47:11

It might be a project for the specific

47:13

thing you're working on, but it could be

47:15

an area or a resource or even the

47:17

archive. So it's kind of like, imagine Para

47:19

as this wall, this giant bulletin board of

47:21

all the things that you could look at

47:23

and touch. But then what do you

47:25

do? You walk up to the board, walk up to the

47:27

wall, pick two or three things off the wall, take them

47:30

over to the desk and start taking action on them. That's

47:32

the difference between Para, which is for storage and

47:34

code, which is for taking action. Gotcha,

47:37

okay, yeah, because I wanna

47:39

make sure that even as

47:41

metaphorical or analogy-driven as

47:43

we've been, that there's a

47:45

clear practical kind of line here to,

47:48

again, like you just said, storage as well

47:50

as action. Because if we can't act, then

47:52

what's the point? It's just, again, us throwing

47:54

all this stuff into Evernote that we'll never

47:56

touch. Exactly. Well,

47:59

the thing is... more

50:00

so than ever before because again, I've

50:02

been overloaded. I've been overwhelmed trying to

50:04

hold things in my brain and I've

50:06

learned over time like I'm always better.

50:08

I always perform better and feel better

50:11

capturing and then having that stuff ready

50:13

to work with. The working with it

50:15

stuff is really the missing piece more

50:17

so for me personally, confession wise. So

50:19

don't feel like you're alone in that

50:22

if you've tried different aspects of this

50:24

before. Start again. Start again with this.

50:26

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more and thank

50:28

you. Tiago, it's been great talking

50:31

with you. Thank you so much for being here

50:33

and hopefully this is just the first of many

50:35

appearances on the show moving forward. I hope so.

50:37

Thank you so much, Eric. Well,

50:41

that's another podcast crossed off your listening to

50:43

do list. I hope that you enjoyed revisiting

50:45

this conversation with Tiago as much as I

50:47

did and I think that it

50:49

really pulls together some of the things that

50:52

we've been talking about on the show again

50:54

with communication but also moving forward

50:56

into dealing with AI as well

50:58

as some upcoming episodes in fact

51:00

that I'm really excited about in

51:02

terms of having that

51:05

alone time, that organizational

51:08

time, that rhythm

51:10

routine to take a

51:13

sabbatical, a cave day.

51:15

You'll get what I'm saying when we get to those

51:18

episodes. They're coming up very soon but I think you're

51:20

going to really enjoy them. This is going to come

51:22

into play from that. Things that you write down and

51:24

or capture those times that you set

51:26

aside for that. If you

51:28

found this conversation helpful, I would love for

51:30

you to do me the favor of sharing

51:32

it with somebody you know needs to hear

51:35

it. Hit that share button wherever you're listening

51:37

to this. Your podcast player app of choice.

51:39

Send it over to somebody you know will

51:41

love this episode like you did. Thank you

51:44

so much for sharing. Thanks again for listening

51:46

and I'll see you next episode. Hey,

52:21

thanks for listening to The End.

52:23

If you're looking for a show

52:25

to start helping you apply these

52:27

productivity lessons on your business, check

52:29

out Millionaire University. It's real lessons

52:31

from real entrepreneurs teaching you what

52:33

you need to know to improve

52:35

your business or start one if

52:37

you've been putting it off. It

52:40

covers all aspects of business from

52:42

starting, marketing, growing, managing, and everything

52:44

in between wearing all the hats.

52:46

And as an added bonus, I

52:48

am conducting a number of those

52:50

conversations, those interviews, so you'll fit

52:52

right in. Again, that's Millionaire University.

52:54

Just search for it in Apple

52:56

Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're

52:59

listening to this podcast.