Create Breakthrough Ideas by Capturing and Organising Knowledge.
EPISODE 226
In his popular course and methodology, "Building a Second Brain," Tiago Forte explores several key personal knowledge management and productivity themes.
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These themes are designed to help individuals effectively capture, organize, and utilize their knowledge and ideas.
Watch the Video of this Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9uqL3pJ60&ab_channel=MoonshotsPodcast
Buy the book on Amazon
Get the summary via Blinkist
https://blinkist.o6eiov.net/m5zmDZ
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Here are some of the prominent themes from "Building a Second Brain":
1. Personal knowledge management: The course emphasizes actively managing and organizing your knowledge. It encourages participants to develop systems and structures to capture and store information in a way that is easily accessible and searchable.
2. Digital note-taking: Forte emphasizes the power of digital note-taking as a tool for capturing and preserving information. He explores various methods and tools for effective note-taking, including using digital tools like Evernote, Notion, or Roam Research.
3. Progressive summarization: This technique involves summarizing and condensing information over time. By progressively summarizing and curating your notes, you can distill them into more concise and actionable insights, making them more valuable and accessible in the long run.
4. Building a personal knowledge library: Forte emphasizes the importance of developing a personal knowledge library as a repository for all your captured information and ideas. This library becomes a valuable resource that can be referenced and expanded upon over time.
5. Knowledge curation: The course delves into knowledge curation, which involves actively selecting, organizing, and connecting different pieces of information to create meaningful relationships and insights. Forte explores strategies for effective curation and its benefits to personal growth and creativity.
6. Productivity and creativity: "Building a Second Brain" recognizes the connection between productivity and creativity. By having a well-organized system for managing your knowledge, you can free up mental space and focus on generating new ideas and insights, leading to enhanced creativity and innovation.
7. Knowledge sharing and collaboration: Forte emphasizes the importance of sharing and collaborating to leverage collective intelligence. He explores ways to effectively share and communicate your knowledge with others, fostering collaboration and creating opportunities for learning and growth.
These themes collectively form the foundation of Tiago Forte's "Building a Second Brain" methodology, providing individuals with practical strategies and techniques to manage their knowledge and enhance their productivity and creativity.
RUNSHEET
Chart of the Day
https://workflowy.com/systems/para-method/
INTRO
Tiago Forte on Bullet Journal discusses the importance of memory in a chaotic world
The value of a second brain (4m37)
WHAT IS
Tiago talks at Google, and how to categorise your second brain with PARA (Projects, Areas of Improvement, Resources, Archive)
Stacking ideas (2m19)
PRACTICE
Productivity Game gives us guidance on how to use Tiago’s categorizations
Organising notebooks with PARA (4m27)
OUTRO
Tiago closes the show with practical advice on working towards creating a project
Stop Setting Goals. Do this instead (4m11)
Watch the Video of this Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9uqL3pJ60&ab_channel=MoonshotsPodcast
Buy the book on Amazon
Get the summary via Blinkist
https://blinkist.o6eiov.net/m5zmDZ
Become a Moonshot Member
https://www.patreon.com/Moonshots
TRANSCRIPT
Mike Parsons: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Moonshots Podcast. It's episode 226. I'm your co-host, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Hey, good morning, Mike. Good morning listeners, as well as viewers. As I always seem to say at the beginning of these shows, boy do we have an action packed one for all of our listeners, members and subscribers today.
Mark Pearson Freeland: But Mike, this one really is a substantial edition into the Moonshots Library of books, authors, and frameworks. Don't you think
Mike Parsons: you might even say that? Apart from enjoying the Moonshots podcast, we are going to literally grow a second brain mark. Can you believe it?
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right, Mike. Today we are diving into the work of.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Tiago Forte, building a second brain. Any promises to teach us to remember everything and achieve. Anything. Mike that's a big promise as we can see. And as we can read on the [00:01:00] title of these book covers, I think really what we're going to delve into today with the work of Tiago and some great breakdowns of the framework and the ideas that he has for you and I and our listeners and viewers to build a second brain, which sounds unbelievably useful.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think the real takeaway for me Is when you sit back and realize how many times in my life have I maybe forgotten a great idea that I had, or an insight that we found within some data, but we failed to take action on it. It's all these items and areas where sometimes, you just get, there's too many plates spinning.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Sometimes you just need a little bit of help, don't you?
Mike Parsons: That's so true. What you're talking about, I think it's a battle for our own attention, right? It is so easy. To be notified to access information. And I think apart from the fact that actually has this addictive dopamine cycle where people just get hooked on scrolling through [00:02:00] feeds, right?
Mike Parsons: Scrolling. Scrolling, yeah. What do they call it? Like a desk scroll or something? Doom. Doom
Mark Pearson Freeland: scrolling. Scroll. I think it's, yeah, which is terrifying, isn't it? It
Mike Parsons: isn't it? So here's the thing though, if you can unpack what Tiago Forte is proposing here. By the way, what a cool name.
Mike Parsons: Tiago Forte. That's strong. He's coming up That is strong. Strong on
Mark Pearson Freeland: Forte. Strong, isn't it?
Mike Parsons: And we, it makes you and I sound so pedestrian, Mark Pearson Freeland, Mike Parsons, like Yon Tiago Forte. So good. I digress. So here's the thing though. It's all about this really interesting idea that we've seen with other experts and authors, which is you need to capture and organize all of that data and information that's relevant to you in such a way that you are not.
Mike Parsons: Trying to use your brain only to remember it. Okay. [00:03:00] So for me, what's really essential to what we're gonna do together with our members, our viewers, and our listeners, is we're gonna really tackle two things. One is this idea of what is gonna be our digital knowledge library. That's the first one. And then the second thing is how you can use it for.
Mike Parsons: Your imagination and your creativity and to get out in the world and make your ideas come alive, because that's where all of the satisfaction. And Mark, as we well know, that's where the challenge lays as well, isn't it?
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right. Arguably it's never been easier to come up with Groundbreaking earth changing ideas and products and services nowadays, you could argue it's possibly a lot easier, but at the same time, boy, is there a lot of information.
Mark Pearson Freeland: It is pretty overwhelming, I would say, to try and bring an idea or just a structure or a behavior into your routine without. [00:04:00] Trying to affect everything that you are doing in your life. It's very easy to get paralyzed by too much stuff. I've certainly, Mike, in my career, that's when I felt the most probably overwhelmed when I've got too much going on.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And I can't make decisions because you're paralyzed with too much options. That's right. I think that's where,
Mike Parsons: yeah. Let's dig into, tho those moments, like when we're trying to learn something new. Or solve a complex problem, we think, oh, great, I'll Google that, or I'll use chat G P T.
Mike Parsons: But that's really only the start of the journey. There's so many books, videos, references, quotes, graphs, charts, studies, expert opinions that you could solicit and you have to. Collect them all and Tiago Forte shows us how to do that. And then how to use it for our creativity, our imagination, and our ideas.
Mike Parsons: So Mark, I think with a bit of gusto, as only someone like Tiago Forte would expect, we should [00:05:00] jump into this world. Mark, tell us where are we gonna start to build our second brain?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think the great call out as well is that this book was actually recommended to us by Yvette, who has been a member and subscriber to the Moonshot Show for many months.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And Yvette, this is this one is for you. So please allow us to introduce this book if we haven't already made the case for why we should consider and try and build a second brain. As Tiga Forte puts it, let's hear from the author himself who's actually gonna help all of us here listen and learn as to why.
Mark Pearson Freeland: We need a second brain
Tiago Forte: building. A second brain is a methodology for creating a system of knowledge management. When I say a second brain, what I'm talking about is a system, a piece of software is my preference to preserve and save for the future. All of your most important information, your ideas, your memories, your mementos, your research, your reading, your highlights, your notes, the whole world of digital information.
Tiago Forte: Is [00:06:00] vast and chaotic and confusing, but you can curate the very best and most important of it in a second brain. For safekeeping, it sounds like it could solve a
Mike Parsons: lot of different
Tiago Forte: problems. I'm curious for you, what problem did it
Mike Parsons: solve?
Tiago Forte: What problem were you looking to solve? The first one was a medical condition.
Tiago Forte: One day in 2007, I was 22 years old working at the Apple store in San Diego. Fashion Valley and in college at San Diego State University. I was working one day and just for no reason out of the blue, I started feeling like a pain intention in my neck one summer day, and I ignored it, but it ki grew worse and kept just deteriorating to the point that I reached the stage that I had trouble speaking, laughing, singing.
Tiago Forte: It was like this, just incredible. Vice grip around my throat that I would wake up in the morning with, which [00:07:00] is a kind of problem that kind of motivates you. Like it's, I needed a solution to that. And so I started seeing different doctors, different specialists, eventually saw at least a dozen different doctors.
Tiago Forte: None of them could give me any clue as to what it was much less a solution. And finally they gave me a last resort, which was a medication. It's a very powerful medication called carbamazepine, which is an anti-seizure medication, usually used to treat schizophrenia. It effectively shuts down your nervous system, numbs your whole nervous system head to toe.
Tiago Forte: It's like an off switch to the pain that I was feeling, of course, at the cost of basically feeling like I was drunk is what it felt like most days. There was another side effect of that too, which was short-term memory loss. So there's a period of a couple years where I had some relief, moderate relief from the pain, but it just would completely wipe memories of conversations that I had and [00:08:00] trips that I took, books I read, classes I took were just like gone, like the hard drive had been formatted.
Tiago Forte: And I think that experience, the pain of it the sort of sense of loss of having really precious memories, disappeared. Really instilled in me in appreciation for memory first, that memory matters. Memory is everything. Who are you without your memories. If I took away your memories, you would be a different person.
Tiago Forte: You would simply not be who you are. Eventually, I just decided I had to take control of my treatment, so to speak. I asked for my patient record, which was like this stack of papers and folders, this thick. Took it home, digitized it on my parents' home computer on the scanner, and turned all that into digital form where then I could start to make sense of it, organize it, annotate it, underline things, connect things.
Tiago Forte: But what I found eventually for that specific issue was that it wasn't an, [00:09:00] like an illness or an infection or a virus, that I could just take a pill. It was a functional condition, is what the data was telling me. It was something in my body telling me, you need to take better care of, you need to be healthier.
Tiago Forte: What I took out away from that was better habits, sleep habits, meditation, exercise, habits. I really had to start taking care of myself, which is a 20 something had not been a priority, and I found that the pain resolve itself, didn't go away completely. Still hasn't actually. But I gained a perspective that I can take control of what is happening to me in my life.
Tiago Forte: I can use these practical problem solving tools to arrive at a solution, and then I can implement that solution in my life in a way that no one else can do for me. And once I figured that out, I realized, oh, this is like a general approach to solving problems and creating results.
Mike Parsons: Ooh. When he [00:10:00] was describing that, mark.
Mike Parsons: You're just like, wow. Imagine being in your early twenties and having this memory loss, having this kind of tension in your throat. And also then when he talks about the sort of prescribed heavy duty medication, you're like, whoa, that is intense. No wonder he needed to develop a system,
Mark Pearson Freeland: yeah, I think as Tiago points out in that, that opening clip for the show memory is what makes us right, and that might be memories of your childhood, but also to be memories and experience from work because then as a leader, you can sit there and guide the team around you based on the experience that you've got.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So if you start to lose. Even just a little bit of that, I think you do start to lose your confidence, your ability to lead correctly as well as, just the ability to live a life that you want to live, isn't it? And I think it all stems down to, as Tiago puts it, taking care of yourself.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think it obviously sounds as though he got to a point [00:11:00] where, a lot of overwhelmed. Emotions probably got in the way and so on. And that led him to think about, okay, wouldn't it be great to have, a second brain as he puts it? Yes. But it comes down to just trying, once again, to take ownership.
Mark Pearson Freeland: You're trying to take care of yourself. You're trying to be that best version. We might have access to all this information every week. Mike, you and I and all of our listeners and viewers delve into all this work from all these authors. But that's a lot of information, isn't it?
Mike Parsons: It really is and I think What a huge moonshots theme mark.
Mike Parsons: The fact that if you want to perform great at work, you need to be great at home. If you want to be super sharp when you are problem solving for work, you need to be super sharp at the gym or when you're doing yoga or working out. All of these things, we are seeing such a pattern between, good diet, good sleep.
Mike Parsons: Good exercise and your performance at work and your [00:12:00] friendships outside of work as well Huge theme we've seen from 200, 300 shows. Now, the other thing though, is what's really cool is when you listen to Tiago talking about this problem solving that he was doing, he needed to collect, manage, organize and see the affinity between things or relationships, connect the dots.
Mike Parsons: That feels like really at the essence of the modern. Knowledge worker is, that's what they do every single day. When someone says to you, Hey, let's work in a new tool. Oh, I've not used that before. So check out this. If I'm doing an online brainstorm with a colleague, it could be in Figma, could be in Mira Miro, it could be in a Google doc.
Mike Parsons: That's three different tools that I need to learn and be proficient with. So the, I think the thing here is, Being very conscious of the need to [00:13:00] manage data, information, and knowledge so that you can recall it and use it to your desires. Like for me, when someone says, let's work in a new tool, or let's solve a new problem, you want to have a set of knowledge to dos.
Mike Parsons: Information insights at your fingertips. Because you, there's nothing worse than that moment where you're like trying to upskill and learn something new and you can't get access. To the knowledge. It's the classic thing when you're like trying to fix a very specific thing and you can't Google, you don't know what to Google, you don't know is it this term or what's it called?
Mike Parsons: Or what's that variation? And then you are spending, like for me, the threshold is like if I haven't got a result after 30 minutes and I'm like not deep in like studying the subject matter, I'm still just trying to find the raw content. That's when I'm like, My brain is just going crazy. I'm so frustrated.
Mike Parsons: I need to [00:14:00] move forward. And I think that's why this second brain idea is so powerful, because you can collect things, organize things. So that gap for huh, I wanna learn how to do this, or, huh, I've been thinking about this, huh? This is a reoccurring theme I'm seeing. Maybe I should think about this, write about this.
Mike Parsons: That to me is really the breakthrough. A lot of respect to see that Tiago has really used this system to overcome what is really a great personal challenge. And I think he, he belongs to the true moonshots club. With that story, don't you?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think he does Mike, but there's many others within that moonshots club that grows week on week,
Mike Parsons: isn't it?
Mike Parsons: Indeed. So I think we're we've come to that moment, mark, where you're official trumpet blowing moment. So I'll let you unleash. Okay, everybody.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Please welcome as always, our moonshots members and subscribers, including Bob, John, Terry, Ken [00:15:00] Dimar, Marj, and Connor and Rodrigo, Lisa, Sid, Mr.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Bonjour, Paul Berg, cowman, David, Joe Crystal, Ivo, Christian, Sam, Barbara. Andre, Eric, Chris, Deborah, and Lasse, all of whom are well over 12 months now. Mike, all of whom have joined us from the get-go. We just keep on building that little foundation of our annual members who are very soon gonna be joined by Steve Craig.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Daniel Andrew. Ravi, Yvette, Karen, Raul, PJ Niko, Ola, Ingram, Dirk and Emily, Harry, Karthik, Vanatta, Marco Rogers, Steph Gaia, Anna Raw, Nilan. Eric, Diana, Wade, Amanda, Christoff, Denise, Theresa Lenara, Laura Smitty, Corey, Andre, gala, max, Bertram, Daniella and Mike who. Mike, we just keep on growing that list. Isn't it amazing?
Mark Pearson Freeland: We've got so many like-minded individuals around the globe joining us, [00:16:00] week on week and supporting the moonshot's club and the Moonshot's family.
Mike Parsons: Yeah, we are very grateful for their support and particular call out for Fert who suggested that we cover this book. So I hope avert you're enjoying this and a little reminder to you all of our.
Mike Parsons: Members, listeners and viewers, if you'd like us to cover a book that you're particularly interested in, head over to moonshots.ao. Tell us hit the, we've got, you can email us, you can jump onto Patreon. You can post us there. There's a zillion different ways you can message us. Jump in, tell us what you want us to study because that will bring us great satisfaction.
Mike Parsons: And I tell you what, Tia's got some more satisfying thinking for us. I think Mark.
Mark Pearson Freeland: He totally does. Mike, next up, we're gonna hear from Tiago again. He's now going to help us understand and come towards categorizing this idea of the second brain, and specifically he's gonna break down his framework of para.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Part
Tiago Forte: of the reason we're keeping everything in a centralized place in your second brain is so it can [00:17:00] mix and match and melt together. You see very different ideas from very different fields, juxtapose and stacked on top of other ideas. Sometimes the most. Random combination of things that appears together ends up being an incredible breakthrough for, something that you're trying to do.
Tiago Forte: Everything in your life from the past, from the future, across your work, across your personal life, across your hobbies, across everything can be organized
in
Tiago Forte: just one of four categories. The projects you're working on that have a short term, outcome that you're working toward, the areas of responsibility that are ongoing over time, resources, which is just everything else.
Tiago Forte: Potentially useful research reference, documents that you might want to use. And then archives, which is everything from the previous three categories, that is no longer actionable. The key principle here is you're not doing what most people do, which is organizing these broad categories like economics, marketing, history, psychology, [00:18:00] which is how, libraries do organization, that doesn't make sense on the individual level.
Tiago Forte: You're organizing according to what's actionable. Projects, areas, resources that's most actionable, less actionable, and least actionable. It's basically, since this is a probably a more nerdy audience, it's an information hierarchy. I use Par to organize Evernote, to organize Google Drive, to organize, click up, to organize even things like my calendar.
Tiago Forte: It is truly a universal framework for your entire digital life, and I challenge you, I would ask you, you know what? Issue, problem, goal, situation that you're facing in your life, are the answers already around you? The answers are there. The answers are maybe in your own head. They're in your journals, they're in the, your family, your colleagues, your boss, your organization's wiki or on the internet, right?
Tiago Forte: How, for how many situations are the answers out there? It's just waiting for you. It's waiting for you to have the agency [00:19:00] and the will and the willingness to take it in, capture it, organize it, distill it, and express it back out into the world.
Mike Parsons: Oh, mark, he's really talking my language there. Let's park the what comes at the end?
Mike Parsons: Putting it back out in the world for a second. We're gonna come back to that. I think that's a really important part. I think this framework that he's talking about, Is all about organizing your life both professionally and personally, and putting it into a hierarchy as he talked about it, in order to operate and be successful.
Mike Parsons: Because here's what I think we're fighting against, if you don't do. If you don't create some system like Tiago Forte is talking about, then basically I think your email inbox and your notifications run your life, right? Yeah, I think you're right. And those systems were never [00:20:00] designed as productivity systems, certainly not as libraries of knowledge.
Mike Parsons: Just try deciphering an email thread, for example, before the show. Woke up early in the morning, I needed to check something that had happened in the US yesterday. And wanted to make sure that was done before I jumped into the show and actually, trying to get through all of these email threads okay, is everything good?
Mike Parsons: Yes. Okay. It's good. It took me way too long. That's an example of email organizing. Me, I think we want to turn the tables. Mark. I think we wanna organize our email, and I know we've got lots of systems and I think we can talk about the systems as well as the outputs. But to me this is all about this high, this highly reoccurring theme that you and I continue to see.
Mike Parsons: Yoko willing wrote a book about it, extreme ownership. But even if you're not as intense as Yoko even if you're not getting up at 4:30 AM every single [00:21:00] morning you need to have a system of organization to manage yourself to make sure what you do matches your objectives. Cuz I think the big unspoken here is that if you are not organizing it, then things.
Mike Parsons: Like email will organize you. You will work to other people's agendas. And you'll remember Cal Newport talked about a world without email, right? Yep. And everybody's tapping into this same thing, whether it's about getting up at four 30 and working out, whether it's having a system like Para, whether it's doing deep work.
Mike Parsons: This is all US wrestling control back of our personal and professional lives in a world that has so many distractions.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yep. I think you're totally right, Mike. And similarly to the extensions, the mediums that you were talking about earlier, whether it's Figma or one of the other many different platforms for [00:22:00] collaboration nowadays, it's great that we've got so many, but what happens for me at least, is I end up with notes.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Let's just take something as very simple as notes over maybe three or four different platforms. Yeah, I'll have notes on my computer. I'll have my to-do list. I'll maybe a Google Docs or sheets. And without having some form of control over that. It's very easy as you point out to let those mediums, those formats confuse me.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And, at the end of the day, not only will it confuse me, it'll frustrate me. Yes. Negatively impact that ability for me to refer back to those discoveries or those insights that perhaps we found along the way. Tiago referenced even something as personal as journals, being able to access or refer back to them through a system or a framework that he's uncovered.
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think really is this is, we're getting into the. Really high level of efficiency and productivity, but also mindfulness, since we [00:23:00] are in the mindfulness series. Yes, because. How overwhelming suddenly for me, Mike, there have been times when you just get so overwhelmed. Where is that thing? I know I've done it before.
Mike Parsons: How do I find it? That goes to the point mark that our brains are not computers. We can't recall data in the same way that computers can. And I think one of the simple hierarchies that I use when I think about health is I think about sleep. I think about diet and I think about exercise.
Mike Parsons: So here's the interesting thing. I have written about that in my journal a lot. I have tools such as the aura ring, I have even my favorite foods and healthy snacks. I even have them in images of them. In a folder called Diet in my [00:24:00] Apple photos. So whenever I'm like what's a healthy snack I can have, it's at my fingertips.
Mike Parsons: Interesting. Yeah. So this is just, when I think about health, I have three subjects. So whether you go to my notes or my diary or my photos, I'm working on it. I'm using tools like Strava. Aura ring. These are all tools in serving my need to manage that because if I'm not managing my health chances are I'm gonna drop the ball because there's so many unhealthy options in the world, right?
Mike Parsons: Just take a walk down through any shopping center mall, high Street, and you're very begin to find food options that are not so great. Things that are in your food and drink that are not so great. And also if you are not measuring. Your fitness and your sleep. Maybe you stay up a bit late and watch too many episodes on Netflix.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. Or maybe you sleep in all the time not [00:25:00] realizing that the key to good sleep is keeping consistent bedtime and wake times. Yeah. So it's when you work on these things in that organized fashion, I think that's the highest form. Of the knowledge management side of what Tiago Forte is talking about.
Mike Parsons: You gotta, if you swim with the right tools and then right. Knowledge management, then the outputs will be fantastic. What do you think, Matt?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah I think you're really speaking to some of the core lessons within the building. A second brain methodology. Mike, you're referencing the idea of finding anything.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So with your. Healthy snacks. You're just creating a way that it's easier for you as an individual who has many things going on big time, finding it quicker. How much time have we all spent wasting looking for things? Like I mentioned, if I'm looking across Evernote, Google sheets and so on, it takes a lot of time.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So not only are you becoming more efficient by having those frame, those. Foundations set up. [00:26:00] You're taking ownership of your organization, let's call it what I think you're also able to start therefore doing, and I think this is the real kicker when it comes to what I can take away from building a second brain with Tiago, is unlocking the full value of the resources that we do have available for us.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yes, we've got the internet, we've got collaboration globally. That can get overwhelming. It certainly has for me too, but I think the real call out here with this. Organization. The building of this second brain is so that we can very quickly and efficiently say, Hey, I've got this problem, or I need this framework, for a particular way of working that I want. Maybe it's rapid prototyping. Maybe it's lean something that for some of us, maybe Mike, you are definitely in there. It'll come straight away. For some of ourselves, we need a way to help us find that let's call it environment. Those frameworks within that, that, that landscape of our minds.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And this is [00:27:00] where that value really comes out for me. It's, as David Allen would put it, the brain is not necessarily a great storage unit. It's not a computer. So true. But if we can create Yeah, it's so true. Isn't it so true. The and if
Mike Parsons: we can. Yeah, no, you were gonna say David Allen, who by the way, we are huge fans of Dave, David Allen.
Mike Parsons: So if you are about getting things done, check out moonshots.io. Hit the the archive show. But Mark, you were talking about Dave Allen and his metaphor of the storage unit and how poor the human brain is. So I'll let you finish your thought.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right. His rule or his advice, David Allens, was to either do it, delegate it, defer it, or drop it.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. So very practical. Yes. And this was all about trying to not distract yourself with all those different areas and distractions that are within our lives. At the same time, very similar to where you and I are going today, Mike, it's very difficult to be focused on a single. Challenge or a single [00:28:00] obstacle that you're trying to unblock.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And at the same time, access those frameworks and those methods that might make it a little bit easier, whatever the problem you do have. So Dave, Adam really made the case for creating a clean environment, a clean foundation Yes. For you to go out and build on. Yeah. In order to have as equals out the stress-free productivity.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's, and Mike. He certainly inspired products that you and I use even now,
Mike Parsons: doesn't he? He did. He did. So his, it was really interesting. You mentioned a framework then, which is called the Eisenhower Matrix, right? Which is prioritizing urgency and importance. And you're absolutely right. The ability to see something as neither important nor urgent, then you actually don't do it.
Mike Parsons: That's a really powerful thing, and that's very much around things that you do, prioritizing tasks and so forth in your day, if we think about being Really effective in how we collect our knowledge. What is [00:29:00] your favorite power tip mark? If you've got the Mark Pearson Freeland Library being built and you're advising our members, viewers, and listeners, what's the one thing you do building your library that is so helpful?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think it comes down to categorization. So for me I'll try and paint a very quick situation, Mike. I will have, let's say, a particular project that I might be working on. The project could be anything, it could be moving country or it could be something specific to work. Let's say it's the Moonshot show.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And it's pulling together a great new show. Maybe it's pulling together a record breaking building, a second brain by Tiago Forte. For me, it all comes down to categorization of the tasks that I need to accomplish. In that case, the categorization might be the order of which to go out and explore something.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Maybe it's digging into the key insights. Maybe it's finding clips, maybe it's pulling out a couple of [00:30:00] key takeaways. Alternatively, Those categories could be areas that are focused on a specific deliverable. For example, what is the introduction going to be? What is the middle takeaway going to be, and so on.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So for me, when I look at something that, a big project that I might have to do, I try and break it down into those, let's call them bite size pieces, because when you look at a, the whole product, Most of the time it feels quite overwhelming. And only by breaking them down into those small little pieces, categorizing them into some form of flow.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Maybe it's, as I, in the case that I mentioned, it's order of when I do things that then helps me understand as well as play a little bit more efficiently when it comes to creating that product.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. On my side. Some things I do that are I do some of the things you were talking about. The other thing I do is like, whenever we have a show coming up, the first [00:31:00] thing I will do is I'll have a look at.
Mike Parsons: The listing on Amazon. If it's an author, I will pick up a few book summaries just to get myself in the headspace. And if I'm at my best, when I think about this knowledge, I will have a collection of YouTube clips articles on, in this case, for example, Tiago. So I will have built. Like quite a backlog of a library, if you will, of related content around Second Brain.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. So by the time that we're at the point of doing the show, I feel like I've really processed this space, this topic, this. Author their life, their story. So I feel like I can, I feel very confident that I can decode it and understand it. So I use things like read wise to tag articles. I use Apple Notes to keep like more like my [00:32:00] templated approach, but here's this.
Mike Parsons: When I know that I'm at my best is that I've actually written out a process that I keep as a template in my to-do application so that when I say prepare for a show, there's already a whole playbook inside it. Yeah. That just takes away. I don't have to remember, how do I usually do it? I know I've done it hundreds of times, but checklist, manifesto, having these things written down all the time to come back to means that I'm generally feeling well prepared for a show.
Mike Parsons: And I think that's all we could ask for. So I think now Mark, we want to deconstruct this as much as we can for our listeners. Why don't you hit us up with another clip and let's see if we can break down completely the system, the habits, the process of building a second brain.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right.
Mark Pearson Freeland: [00:33:00] We're now getting to the pointy edge, Mike, of this great idea from Tiago. So let's hear, we heard a little bit in that second clip already, the idea of P A R a para, let's hear now, a real deep breakdown this time from one of our moonshot's all-time favorites, productivity game, who's going to help us provide us guidance on how to use this categorization as well as a deeper dive into what power means.
Productivity Game: Projects include anything you're working on in life or at work that has a clear endpoint. Example, project notebooks include 2022 taxes, website redesign, and quarterly team meeting. If an idea you have or information you encounter can help you complete a project, it goes into a project folder. Each time you work on a project, you open the folder slash notebook for that project and scroll through the latest notes.
Productivity Game: Most people sit down to work on a project and trust their best ideas will magically come to mind, but that rarely happens. You'd be better off if you gradually captured good [00:34:00] ideas in your second brain and reviewed those ideas when you sit down to work on a project. When you start a project work session by scanning ideas and information you previously captured, you quickly reengage with that project and kill procrastination.
Productivity Game: Now let's talk about the areas of improvement section of your second brain. The areas of improvement section of your second brain contains digital notebooks on all the things you're trying to actively improve or maintain the instinct you're ready to seriously improve a skill or level up an area of your life.
Productivity Game: You visit the areas of improvement section in your second brain. Some areas of improvement, notebooks in your second brain might include fitness investing, home maintenance, your business, colon marketing, or your business colon sales. Areas of improvement are long-term and open-ended, like running a successful business.
Productivity Game: While projects are short-term and finite, like launching a new product. In my areas of improvement section, I have a notebook for my productivity game premium membership called PG Colon [00:35:00] membership. That notebook was a project when I was creating my membership, but since the membership launched, I'm now trying to continually improve my membership based on emails I get from customers and random ideas I have.
Productivity Game: I now put customer emails and random ideas in my PG colon membership notebook. Inside the areas of improvement section in my second brain, oftentimes notes in your areas of improvement will morph into a project notebook. When I first thought of building a goal setting course inside my membership ideas for that course went into my PG colon membership notebook, but the instant I decided to build and release that course, I made a project notebook titled PG Colon Goal Setting course in the project section of my second brain and moved all the notes on the course to that notebook.
Productivity Game: Now let's talk about resources. The resources section in your second brain is your personal library of references, facts, and inspiration you will use to start future projects and improve an area of your life. If a project is like a meal you're cooking up [00:36:00] on the stove and plan to have for dinner. And an area of improvement.
Productivity Game: Notebook is like a big meal. You're cooking in a slow cooker that you plan to consume during the week, but don't know when you'll finish. A resource is like a spice or type of pasta in your pantry you can use to make your next meal. The resources section of your second brain contains examples you've collected and can use for inspiration.
Productivity Game: For instance, you might have a resources notebook titled YouTube video thumbnails with images of cool thumbnails you've seen over the past few months. You can reference this notebook when you're ready to start making videos on YouTube. Your resources section also includes actionable insights from the books, videos, and articles you've encountered that you might use when you commit to a project later.
Productivity Game: For example, you might be interested in trying the ketogenic diet one day, so you have a resources notebook titled Going Keto, where you capture strategies and meals you might try. That folder stays a resources notebook until you commit to going on a ketogenic diet. And [00:37:00] lastly, your resources section contains checklists and data from past projects you know will be helpful for future projects.
Productivity Game: Now let's talk about the archive. Any information you don't wanna forget, but does not advance a project or area of improvement and will not be used to kickstart a future project goes into your archive. The archive contains completed projects in active projects, areas of improvement. You no longer care to improve or maintain.
Productivity Game: And resources you don't plan to use anytime soon. The archive is a dumping ground that will allow you to keep your system clean and have your projects, areas of improvement and resources. Notebooks reflect who you are, what you're committed to doing, and where you want to go. Moving, completed or inactive notebooks into your archive breathes life into your second brain because you stop suffocating it with notes you'll probably never need again.
Mike Parsons: Oh, that was so well said at the end. And this is a great little template we've got on the screen here, mark. And[00:38:00] for me, like working backwards here, like the archive, this is all about. Having things that are retrievable and I think about here they're not urgent. Let's say for example you and I are both running a marathon in less than a month, by the way, hope you're training.
Mike Parsons: But I've got the run plan from last year's marathon, and that's in my archive, right? My resources are really templates, run plans. Other examples of things I've collected. I have a lot, quite a lot of YouTube videos with tips and tricks. But the big thing at the moment in my projects is to every week I need to run and walk 50 kilometers.
Mike Parsons: And that change that's now gone up to 60 cuz I'm loading up for the marathon. So that goes into my. To do. It's in my goals that I set every week. It's in my OKRs. I even journal on it and they run across [00:39:00] all of these different areas, projects, the areas, the resources, and the archives. That's an example of how I'm using it and what's interesting is I'm using a writing tool.
Mike Parsons: Could IA writer. I use YouTube, I use Google images, like there are so many resources and tools that are clustered in these four areas. This is how I'm tackling this power framework. What I want to know is, as I explain that to you, how is that similar or different to the way you might prepare for the marathon?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think, Mike, you are a good example of somebody who's. Utilizing the framework of Tiago to a certain extent already. You're probably gonna put you up in the super fans of Tiago because of how well your structure is already following each of these four areas. For me, as a mere mortal, I'm still contending, I'm still contending with a couple of those different areas, for example, What I really enjoy [00:40:00] being able to do through the advancements of collaboration tools and so on is refer back to past projects.
Mark Pearson Freeland: So as Tiago would call it, the archives. I really enjoy being able to look back at some of the past work because it then reintroduces me to that third column, which is resources. So frameworks plans and so on. And what I've probably not been able to. Utilize to date is this categorization, which to a certain extent follows the idea that it's outcome driven.
Mark Pearson Freeland: A lot of the time, and we referenced this earlier, when you've got so much going on, it's sometimes difficult to know where to start, or it's sometimes difficult to keep the wheels turning because there's so much going on. For me, the benefit that I can see from. Utilizing and activating a foundational framework similar to what we've heard today and for our viewers, what you can see on the screen, and we'll have a note to the framework within our show doc as well, is [00:41:00] starting to help me appreciate and understand how you can break up all of those different areas.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right. And tasks and the objectives that you're trying to do. That's right. I think for me as a great next step, even building. Mike, we haven't even finished the show, but my brain is already ticking along and thinking how I can start to utilize this framework. It makes it much more bite size.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. It makes it much more actionable and you can own it and take control over it a lot easier, I would say. Do you find, Mike, that when you've got something as daunting, perhaps as a big marathon, a framework such as this, where you can. Utilize and dig into, as you called it earlier, a playbook of steps of routines and so on.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Do you find that is a very efficient and easier way of doing it? Do you feel more efficient when you are following that process? Yeah,
Mike Parsons: I do. And I try and use what I describe to you for the marathon. I actually try and use that for most things that I do. So we have a family vacation around the marathon.
Mike Parsons: So [00:42:00] that has its own project, right? Yeah. The the breaking life into projects and making sure those projects relate to your goals. And then, I remember actually Michael Gerber's Euth, and he talked about. Everything should be a system and a template so that the small business owner is not held hostage by the business, but they should see it as I'm all, even if you're not creating a franchise, his whole trick is think like you are creating a franchise, because what that means is you have to create books.
Mike Parsons: Playbooks, template systems manuals that make it highly repeatable for others to do. And in the same way we're doing that here, we're making a bunch of knowledge work towards our areas of interest to be resourceful and useful so we can achieve our goals and our projects. And I believe that the more you [00:43:00] collect.
Mike Parsons: Relevant knowledge and information, the better you can master something and achieve your goals. And if you leave it all to the last minute, we all know that sinking feeling of when you've got a deadline and you start on something and go, oh my gosh, I've left this way, way too late.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Absolutely. And we've discussed techniques on trying to remove that anxiety on the show before, haven't we? Planning in advance creating skeletons or table of contents, and that's just starting to scratch the surface on what I think is probably within that project space. So as Tiago mentioned and productivity game broke down for us, projects are finite.
Mark Pearson Freeland: They're short-term, whereas those areas are much more long-term and maybe open-ended. That for me feels like a really. Actionable as well as easy to understand differentiation actually because then I can start to think how to separate some of those longer tasks that maybe I've gotten in the back of my mind, [00:44:00] but I don't yet know whether those are going to be projects yet, yes or not.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah. And that brings me to the next big takeaway for me from Tiago is that this is dynamic. You can move let's call them items, projects, or tasks within each of these categories, depending on where you are, for example. Your reference to, family holiday, doing the marathon and so on.
Mark Pearson Freeland: You could move that around. You could refer back to it once it's in the archives. And I like this flexibility, I suppose you could call it, with this framework because it's reminding me again, Mike of things s similar to second order thinking. You're able to start to look into the future based on what you've probably accomplished in the past.
Mike Parsons: Which is kinda, yeah. Yeah. No, I think the the framing of this system of a second brain is the most efficient way to collect knowledge so you can turn it into fuel for your goals, help you achieve the things that you want to achieve, which is, [00:45:00] Everything we're trying to master here on the Moonshots podcast.
Mike Parsons: The last thing I would say is the key thing with knowledge as you collect it. So let's move away a little bit from the health and the workout and the running analogy and let's think about the mastery of the things that you know as a knowledge worker, as a professional. I think the key thing is, What we shouldn't forget is that Tiago talks about don't just organize the knowledge.
Mike Parsons: Combine it, layer it, connect it, and create your own unique point of view. Very much like Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in her books. And so I think the last thing to mention here is that whatever you are learning, whether it's making a video or a podcast, or writing a blog, Produce content, which is a new ordering synthesis of all the things that you've learned, make it your unique recipe.[00:46:00]
Mike Parsons: It could be a pasta meal, that's okay, but it's your pasta meal. It could be your, exactly your thinking around productivity, which plenty of others have written about, but it's your thinking on productivity. I believe, mark that when we. Set a goal of putting something back out into the world like a blog or a video or a course or a paper.
Mike Parsons: This is not only contributing to the people around you for your own self. The mere act of republishing all those data points into a new recipe is how you actually master your area of focus. Your talents is by actually challenging yourself to output something, don't you?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think you're totally right, Mike, and that again reminds me or reaffirms, I suppose you could say the value of following this type of framework because it does benefit you in the long run, right?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Not only is it gonna be something that you might benefit day-to-day at this point in the short term, you've got a product [00:47:00] project deadline on the cards and so on. But knowing that the future version of myself will thank me, they will look back and say, ah, that organization. That I showed back in the day when we were learning about Para and Tiago was worth it because suddenly it becomes so much easier to deep dive or even just lightly get back into some of those topics and some of those notebooks and some of those tasks.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Based on having something as structured as this foundation.
Mike Parsons: So hopefully this tool is the most useful, practical, helpful thing for your day-to-day as you view this. But Mark, it would only be appropriate that we not only give some practical habits, tips, frameworks, but I think this is calling for one last dose of inspiration from Tiago Forte.
Mike Parsons: Don't you?
Mark Pearson Freeland: That's right. We've got one more clip coming at us from Tiago Forte who's gonna close the show with us and G really [00:48:00] dive into some practical advice on working towards creating a project.
Tiago Forte: Goals are not magic spells. What really makes a difference is what comes after setting that goal. The project that you create to take you there.
Tiago Forte: Projects are where things actually happen, where intention meets action. Where the abstract plans in our head get manifested into this material reality. If the goal is the destination, a project is the vehicle that takes you there. Now, I'm gonna be very straight with you. If you have a goal that you want to achieve, but there's no project attached to it, that is called a dream.
Tiago Forte: A lot of people think they have a writing goal. When in fact they have a writing dream. They think they have an exercise goal, when in fact it's an exercise dream. When I was in my early twenties, I had a dream of living in a different country. I talked about it, I daydreamed about it. I made lists of the amazing places that I would [00:49:00] live, but there was one distinct moment late at night.
Tiago Forte: When something flipped in my mind and that dream turned into a project, I decided at that moment that I was going to apply to the Peace Corps, which is an overseas volunteer program for Americans who serve in other countries. It was a challenging project just applying. There were health checks, background checks, multiple rounds of applications, and countless forms to fill out.
Tiago Forte: Took over a year. Just to finish the application process that ended up being one of the most pivotal, meaningful years of my entire life. Every dream is waiting for that one moment when you decide to commit and begin taking those practical steps. Only then. Does it become a goal? Now, let's take the opposite case.
Tiago Forte: You have a project, but no associated goal. That is what's called a hobby. In that case, you're doing something. You might even be doing a lot of it, but if there's nowhere that you're trying to arrive [00:50:00] at, nowhere in particular, then you must be basically doing it just for fun, right? You're saying you want to improve your budgeting, let's say, but you're not measuring your progress toward any kind of end result.
Tiago Forte: Without a goal to give your efforts direction, you're just as likely to take two steps forward, but then take three steps back. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hobbies. Okay? Hobbies, give life texture. They give life meaning you don't have to excel at everything you do, not Everything in life has to become a side hustle.
Tiago Forte: When you distinguish between projects and hobbies, both of them get better. You can work hard when it's time to work hard and fully relax when it's time to relax without confusing the two. I'll summarize everything that I've said with one simple phrase. A project without a goal is a hobby. A goal without a project is a dream.
Tiago Forte: So I'm gonna ask the same question of you. What in your life [00:51:00] that you say is a goal is really a dream? What in your life that you say is a project is really a hobby? When the moment arrives that you decide it's time to make real progress on something. Instead of just dreaming and instead of just tinkering, you'll need two things.
Tiago Forte: You'll need a goal to inspire you and give you direction, and you'll need a project to make it happen.
Mike Parsons: Ooh, what a nice one to end on. I just love this idea of it's okay to dream and to have a vision. But don't kid yourself. And don't fall in the trap of only dreaming. You gotta kickstart things, make that project.
Mike Parsons: I relate to this as somebody who ran their first marathon last year w signing up for the marathon for your first ever marathon changes everything. That's when you're like, oh boy, it just got really happened. And just like sending [00:52:00] yourself targets. For health, for sleep, for personal wealth targets, projects at work.
Mike Parsons: These things, they spur you into action and I think it's particularly useful when you share them with friends and family so they can hold you accountable to the promises. Don't just. Write a little project to the side and just keep it your own personal information in your journal. I think you've gotta share it a bit, don't you, mark?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Yeah I think you're totally right. We encountered this inside a little bit, even in vex King's, good vibes, good life. When you start to share or voice out loud, either an objective, maybe even, it's just a good bit of gratitude. Sometimes those repetitions, there's moments of sharing it with somebody else.
Mark Pearson Freeland: You can, as you point out, Mike, be held accountable. You can find others. Maybe it's a boss, maybe it's a colleague, maybe it's a partner. And those [00:53:00] individuals can help you stay on track. Yes. Can't they? They hold you accountable. How are you doing on that project that you mentioned?
Mike Parsons: Yeah. Yes. You still
Mark Pearson Freeland: doing it?
Mark Pearson Freeland: How's a marathon training? Because you've shared the fact that you're going
Mike Parsons: out to do it. That's right. That's right. That's right. Look, I think the battle most of us are in, and Tiago nailed it, is we're just dreaming. We haven't actually built the project, and I think that is, By far, the big takeout here is if you truly want something, have the courage to create the project, tell people about it, set the goal, and then use your second brain to get there in the smartest way possible.
Mark Pearson Freeland: Look, there's been plenty of times in my life, Mike, and I'm sure it's the same for a lot of us, where those dreams either materialize into a project and you start to chase it, similar, we've referenced the idea of marathons today. I think that's certainly something that, for me was a dream and now it's become more of a project.
Mark Pearson Freeland: It's now got an actionable outcome. But yeah I've had plenty of hobbies or [00:54:00] dreams that have not come to fruition. And fundamentally I think that comes down to, if I was trying to understand why, it's because of a lack of framework. There's a lack of trying to figure out how do I actually take the first step?
Mark Pearson Freeland: Is it from getting investment? If it was a product or a service, is it about having validation? Is it user testing? Is it finding an interested party who wants to, join me and come along for the ride? There's a lot of moments that you don't know necessarily where to start. And I think where Tiago has tried to take us today is making that case.
Mark Pearson Freeland: That if you structure it and you break it out and similar, Mike, you referenced this earlier, you might have a single task that you wanna do each day, but within that task you've got a few other Oh yeah. Sub moments. Yeah. Playbook, as you pointed out. Without those, it really becomes totally overwhelming.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And those dreams really do stay as dreams,
Mike Parsons: don't they? So what of the techniques that Tiago has shared with us [00:55:00] today, which one are you gonna go and work on? Which one's gonna get your attention?
Mark Pearson Freeland: I think today with the practicality of power of projects, areas, resources, and archives, that's the key that's really standing out.
Mark Pearson Freeland: To me, it's this categorization as well as organization. And if I was to take even one step further and really deep dive into that whole structure, Mike, I'd probably say the differentiation. Between projects and areas, yes, is where I can work a little bit harder. I think the archive piece I fully comprehend, but it's that differentiation between what is your project, where are your areas, which ones has a finite end date, let's say.
Mark Pearson Freeland: And therefore moving on from there into practicality. Yeah. Which of the clips as well as the framework that we've uncovered today really stands out to you. What are you gonna do differently, Mike?
Mike Parsons: Ooh, I think I probably need to tackle the projects bit and ask myself, [00:56:00] do I have too many?
Mike Parsons: That, that would probably be my reading. That's what's been really helpful. So I'm gonna go and do that homework, but I just, it's. I've taken out of this a lot of inspiration, but some very practical tips as well Yeah. I wanna say to you, mark, thank you for joining me and also to you, our members, viewers and listeners today on Show 226 with Tiago Forte building a Second Brain, and it really started with this idea of, it's hard to remember everything.
Mike Parsons: In fact, Tiago actually lost his memory for a while, and that's really where the value of the second Brain comes in. It's like personal knowledge management, and we learn the absolute. Killer. Typical moonshots framework, para projects, areas of improvement, resources, and archive. That is the four parts of your second brain.
Mike Parsons: So build a second brain. Take your dreams and build projects and you will certainly achieve your [00:57:00] goals. You'll achieve much more than that. You'll become a better version of yourself. You'll become the very best you can be. You can do it together with us here at the Moonshots Podcast. You can learn out loud together, and that's what we love to do.
Mike Parsons: Alright, that's a wrap.