Tiago Forte's Blog, page 26

Tiago Forte on the Sources & Methods Podcast

I recently sat down with Alex Strick van Linschoten and Matt Trevithick on their podcast Sources and Methods, for an hour-long chat about my latest thinking on methods for organizing knowledge work, and the weaknesses of the ‘deep work’ trend.

Click here to visit the Sources & Methods website for the audio recording, or listen below:

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Crafting a Book Proposal

Your proposal is like a business plan for your book.

It needs to justify why your book is worth not just years of your time and effort, but the time and effort of dozens of professionals around the country (and maybe even around the world) who will be needed to get your book on shelves. Not to mention the time and money of the many thousands of readers you hope will buy it.

This is perhaps the hardest idea for writers new to publishing to wrap their head around: you write the proposal and sell your book before writing it.

This took me years to fully understand. It completely went against the vision in my mind of a writer toiling late into the night, for years on end, only to emerge victoriously with a completed manuscript in hand. In this vision, the writer doesn’t have to prove that the book will be worth reading. She already has it, so she can just show that it is worth reading.

But this simply isn’t how the process works. Publishers are investors, and they want to feel like they have a hand in the development of the book. They don’t want to be just a source of funding combined with a printing outfit. They want to be creative partners in your book. And partnership requires that they be involved from the beginning.

This is also best from the writer’s point of view. You don’t want to spend several years writing a book, only to have it flop. You want to have some assurances that there is a ready and willing audience for what you have to say.

Since you can’t go out and secure promises from one reader at a time that they will buy it, the next closest thing is to have a promise from a publisher that they will publish it. That promise is the contract you sign when you sell your proposal and land a book deal.

This is why I’ve focused this series on the all-important milestone of landing a book deal. It is the step you have to reach to even have a shot at all the other steps. Once you have a book deal, you have a team. A team made up of an agent, an editor, a publisher, a publicist, and others, all dedicated to helping you see your book through to completion. Until you have a deal, you should focus all your energy on reaching this milestone.

Here are the main components of a standard proposal, as described in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (affiliate link) from which much of the content in this series is drawn:

Table of contents
Overview
Bio
Audience
Competition
Marketing and promotion
Manuscript specifications
Outline
Sample chapters

Each of these sections should be no more than a few pages, double spaced, with the exception of “Marketing and promotion,” which can be longer.

Let’s examine each of them in more detail.

Overview

The overview is an executive summary of the whole proposal, allowing anyone to grasp its essence in just a page or two. It needs to entice and invite while illuminating how your book is unique and urgently needed. It should briefly describe every other part of the proposal.

Here’s the Overview from the proposal for No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, which teaches readers how to write a novel in 30 days:

When I was 26 years old, I accidentally founded an institution that now produces more fiction than all of America’s MFA programs combined. I blame it all on coffee. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began in a moment of overcaffeinated ambition when I sent out an email to friends, challenging each of them to write a 50,000-word novel in July. Since then, the escapade—chronicled on the CBS Evening News and NPR’s All Things Considered and in dozens of newspaper and magazine articles around the world—has grown to include a high-tech website, hundreds of spin-off fan sites and discussion groups, and thousands of enthusiastic participants every year. Part literary marathon and part rock-and-roll block party, NaNoWriMo is based on the idea that anyone who loves fiction should be writing his own. Not for fame and fortune (though those may come in time). But because novel writing is ridiculously fun once you throw away the rulebook. My rallying cry as NaNoWriMo cruise director (and fellow participant) is simple: No plot? No problem! That low-stress, high-velocity approach has helped tens of thousands of writers set aside their fears and dive headlong into the joys of homemade literature. Based on four years of experience as the director of NaNoWriMo, No Plot? No Problem! will be a thoughtful, encouraging and fun guide to blasting out a 50,000-word novel in a month.

This overview is effective because it accomplishes many things at once:

Demonstrates the same playful voice he will use in his book
Shows what an interesting, funny, ambitious person he is
Identifies both a rabid fan base and a wide potential audience that is likely to buy this book
Demonstrates marketing and publicity potential
Shows how much thought has already gone into every aspect of the book
Proves that there’s no other book quite like this one

Bio

Your bio makes the case for why you are the ideal person to write this book and sell it to the reading public. It’s up to you to demonstrate why you have the expertise, life story, and passion to make it happen. You should also try to anticipate any objections that publishers may have.

Here’s Chris Baty’s bio:

Founder and four-time National Novel Writing Month winner, Chris Baty is the Web’s most sought-after writing coach. The 29-year-old Oakland, California, freelance writer has been called “an indie David Foster Wallace with compassion” (Fabula Magazine) and has been profiled in newspapers ranging from the L.A. Times to the Chicago Tribune to the Melbourne Age, as well as being featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and a host of BBC radio programs. When not heading up NaNoWriMo, Baty is usually on the road, covering Louisiana juke joints and Parisian thrift stores for such publications as the Washington Post, the SF Weekly, the Dallas Observer and Lonely Planet guidebooks. His funny, freewheeling style landed him an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for Best Music Writing in 2002. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1999, Baty spent several years behind the editing desk, first for Fodor’s publications and later as the New York, London and Chicago City Editor for the travel Web site ontheroad.com. Baty holds degrees in cultural anthropology and psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. His quest for the perfect cup of coffee is never-ending and will likely kill him someday.

Here’s what this bio accomplishes:

Shows that he already has a wide reach with his writing
Presents many facts and accolades highlighting how many things Chris has done
Provides testimonials from famous, influential people praising Chris’ work
Associates Chris with top publications
Demonstrates once again his freewheeling and funny writing style
Establishes Chris’ writing and academic credibility

Audience

This is where you describe your audience as specifically as possible. Prove that they have a willingness to buy and that you’ve been actively connecting with them and listening to what they have to say. Quantify the size of the audience, their buying power, and how many of them you can reach.

Here’s an excerpt from the audience section of the proposal for No Plot? No Problem!:

Readers buy how-to books expecting a silver bullet—a magical formula that makes a daunting activity understandable and achievable. This is exactly what No Plot? No Problem! delivers: a results-oriented plan for people who want to nurture their inner artists without getting tangled in time-consuming classes or ongoing writing groups. After one week of the No Plot? No Problem! regime, participants will have already written 46 pages of their novel. By delivering huge results in a short time, the book will have instant appeal for busy people who want to experience the creative joys of writing, but who have limited free time to devote to the project before the demands of real life intervene. Also, by framing novel-writing as a short-term, highly accessible activity for everyone, No Plot? No Problem! casts its line out beyond the confines of “serious writers,” tapping into the vast demographic of people who have no fiction-writing experience but who feel they have a story worth telling. The structured creativity of No Plot? No Problem! will reassure first-time writers that they already possess all the skills necessary to write a rough draft, and that the only thing standing between them and their manuscript is a month’s labor.

Competition

Identifying your competition has two purposes:

To prove that no one has published the same book already
To associate your book with others that have been successful

For the first, you want to articulate how your book is different from others. For the second, how it’s similar. It’s a delicate balance to strike.

For each “comp” (a comparative, previously published title), describe the book’s message in a short paragraph. Say why your book will succeed where the comp has failed. Or, speak to an aspect of the subject they have failed to address.

Here is an excerpt from this section from No Plot? No Problem!:

And unlike the overly broad books for novice writers that cover everything from brainstorming protagonists to handling royalty checks, No Plot? No Problem! brings all of its taskmastering to bear on the first and highest hurdle: surviving the first draft.

Marketing and promotion

It is your job to convince publishers you will make an all-out effort to promote the book in every way possible.

Here are the kinds of questions this section should answer:

Which public venues, both in-person and online, will you speak at?
Which radio, television, magazine, or newspaper audiences will you reach?
Which bloggers or media figures will you get in touch with for interviews, guest appearances, or guest articles?
Are you affiliated with any large groups?
Does your website receive a lot of traffic?
Will you make a short trailer video showcasing the main takeaways?

Manuscript specifications

This section is highly concrete and practical. It includes such details as approximate word count, any special design features or illustrations, and how long it will take you to complete the book once you’ve accepted an offer.

Outline

This doesn’t have to be final, but you should show that you have a solid working plan for the book’s contents.

Include section and/or chapter headings with a few paragraphs explaining what each one will contain and how it moves the book forward. The voice and style of these paragraphs should match the voice and style of the book.

Sample chapters

You’ll need to include one to three sample chapters for a total of 20-50 pages. It’s a good idea to start with the first chapter so readers can more easily understand the flow of the book.

Other elements

A modern book is an artifact that exists in physical form but also extends into the online world. Here are some things you can include in the proposal as optional, but desirable, extras:

Blurbs, or testimonials, from well-known authors, journalists, or industry experts
Press kit and photos, which give publishers a taste of your marketing acumen
Website with links to extra resources or guides
Video trailer, presenting what the book is about in one to three minutes
Speaking engagements, showing that you have an existing circuit
Press coverage if you’ve received any

The book proposal is a very different kind of text than most writers are used to. It is much more cold, detached, and objective, presenting the business case for the book in terms of hard numbers to a skeptical audience for whom the default answer is “no.”

But that doesn’t mean there’s no creativity involved in writing it. This is persuasive writing at its best, crafting a vision of the future that feels so compelling and inevitable, that a publisher can’t pass up the chance to be part of it.

In the next post, we’ll look at what it looks like to start assembling the team that you’ll need to finish the book-writing journey.

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Praxis is Joining the Everything Bundle

My Praxis blog is joining Everything, an online publication curating the very best content on productivity, organizing, personal effectiveness, and strategy on the web. Click the button below to join, or keep reading for the full story.

Join Everything

When I first started Praxis, my mission was to “dramatically increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the information you consume.”

That’s nerd-speak for “make every minute you spend consuming information much, much more valuable.”

I noticed that so much of the content I encountered online was just awful. Driven by clickbait, optimized for maximum distraction, and always catering to the lowest common denominator, it only added to people’s confusion and overwhelm instead of reducing it. 

The problem was even worse in my area of expertise – productivity, performance, and personal effectiveness. There were lots of gems out there, but they were buried beneath an avalanche of boring, mediocre, frivolous “tips and tricks” that did a disservice to the incredible depth and breadth of the human experience at work.

I launched Praxis membership to provide one place where any knowledge worker could go to find a collection of insights that were both practical and profound. Where they would be able to encounter new ways of thinking and working without having to do all the research and experimentation that I’ve done over the years.

That experiment has been a phenomenal success over the last two years, with over 1,200 members now subscribing from around the world. These “Praxsters” have enabled me to invest the time and effort to publish 213 pieces of content in that time, including 60 paywalled posts for members only.

We are in the midst of a two-fold revolution: a revolution of ideas about what it means to be a creative in the modern economy, and just as importantly, a revolution in the technology needed to actually implement those ideas. Increasingly I’m realizing that I can only cover a tiny fraction of this 21st-century renaissance in human potential.

It’s now time to take Praxis to the next level. I’m joining forces with Dan Shipper of the Superorganizers newsletter, and Nathan Baschez of the Divinations newsletter, to create a new “super-bundle” called Everything. With this alliance, we are creating a one-stop shop for the world’s best thinking on productivity, organizing, and strategy for the absurdly low price of $20.

For many months now, I’ve followed Nathan and Dan as they’ve published truly excellent, strategic, timely content on the up-and-coming Substack platform. I’ve consistently found it to be among the most actionable, thoughtful, and impactful writing on the topics that most interest me and my audience that I’ve found anywhere. 

Dan covers many of the developments that I miss, such as simple systems for paper note-taking, deep-dives of my arch-enemy Roam Research, and profiles of the life management systems of thought leaders like Marie Poulin (including yours truly). As a coder, Dan even creates small apps to solve everyday headaches, including Sparkle, based on my PARA organizational system.

Through Dan I learned about Nathan and his Divinations publication, which I’ve now also started reading religiously. It explains key concepts from business strategy in simple, accessible language, which is very refreshing. For example, he’s recently written about what is going on with the podcast ecosystem, operating principles of unexpectedly successful companies like Dominoes, and his personal experimentation with up-and-coming trends like Clubhouse. His article explaining the logic of bundles was the inspiration for this collaboration!

Now that we live in a world of full-stack freelancers, it’s more important than ever that everyone have a basic understanding of business strategy. It’s no longer just something for corporate executives to think about. All of us are a “startup of one,” and it’s time for us to start learning like one.

Current Praxis members will receive free access to their entire archive, plus a free ongoing subscription to the Everything bundle at no extra cost. This is my thank you for your trust and loyalty in funding my research and writing. If you’re currently a Praxster, look out for an email from me in the next couple days with a link to opt in.

As always, all three of us will continue to publish free content to the public on a regular basis. The Praxis blog will continue to be the home of all my past and future content. 

But for our best, most in-depth, most comprehensive thinking, you can join the club for only $20 per month, or $200 per year (a 17% discount). We are creating a next-generation publishing platform where you can get the highest-quality content from across the Internet delivered straight to your inbox like clockwork.

When I first started Praxis, I wrote that “None of us can make this vision happen alone. We need a tribe of people with a purpose to connect and collaborate with.”

I believe those words more than ever. With this new combined publication, we’ll have an even greater critical mass of interesting people to connect and collaborate with. I’m confident that the conversations, relationships, and ultimately, ideas that come out of that will be better than ever. 

I invite you to join us on this new chapter, and subscribe below (with a 1-day free trial so you can check things out):

Subscribe to the Everything bundle

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Interview with Oliver Sauter of Memex

On Wednesday, June 17 at 12pm PT, I’ll be interviewing Oliver Sauter, the Co-Founder of a knowledge management and online bookmarking platform called Memex.

Memex is built by a company called WorldBrain, whose vision is “A well informed and less polarised society where everyone can use their full attention to create knowledge and make sustainable, effective and compassionate decisions.” Their vision is “To make it faster for people to organise, share and discover trustworthy and perspective-rich content on the web & support an internet where individuals enjoy data ownership, privacy & freedom to choose software providers without lock-ins.”

Memex has been built from the ground up to prioritize the privacy, security, and accessibility of its users’ data, with core features like:

Full text search of every website you’ve visited, with no upfront work required to save itHighlighted annotations on websites, in its original context, without requiring a separate toolAbility to sort and organize bookmarks using tags and collectionsEncrypted sync of content between different web and mobile devicesSidebar and keyboard shortcuts within the browser to maximize speedA novel corporate structure that caps investor returns to ensure company incentives remain aligned with customers

I’ve heard a lot of good things about WorldBrain and what they’re working on, and wanted to hear from Oliver about their current progress and future plans. Click here or the button below to register for a 1-hour Zoom call where I’ll ask Oliver about the ideas behind its creation, how it differs from other platforms, and ask him to demonstrate its most powerful use cases:

Click here to register

For more information, I suggest

Reading WorldBrain’s inspiring post Vision, Mission & Values — 2020 UpdateWatching this short 90-second video demonstrating the appReading this short article on Oliver and WorldBrain from Founder Institute

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The 5 Stages of Building a Second Brain

By Pranav Mutatkar

Note from Tiago: these are the “5 stages” a recent student went through as part of my online course Building a Second Brain, in which I teach people how to create a system of personal knowledge management (known as a “Second Brain”) for themselves.

1. Holy crap, this could change everything. I’m going to become an organization GOD

You read up on the course and dig into what Tiago talks about. You read his blogs. You follow him on Twitter. You get super excited. This is gonna be it. This will change my life forever.

Eventually you realize : This course is different from other online courses you’ve taken. This is the real deal. You buy the course and expectantly wait for it to start.

2. Tiago is the lord of productivity

Wow, so this is Tiago. He’s cool. He actually replies to questions I ask? Damn, he’s really cool. And clearly a smart dude. I’m a huge fan already.

I know the best way to kill it in this class: I’m going to pause any video where he shows his second brain and screenshot it. Because I’m going to copy his second brain to the frickin’ T.

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Eventually you realize: Tiago is smart, but so are you. Tiago’s system isn’t going to be 100% perfect for you. You’re trying to build your second brain. Not Tiago’s.

3. What’s the perfect tool and second brain system for me?

Roam, Notion, Evernote, Workflowy, Dynalist, OneNote, DevonThink. I’m gonna research them all. It doesn’t matter that I also have a full-time job, kids, and residual crisis stress. Once I have the perfect app, I will reach note-taking nirvana.

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Eventually you realize: There is no such thing as the perfect app. All you need is a good enough app. Perfection isn’t the goal. Being done is. You have a feeling you’re going to be continually re-learning this lesson in many other aspects of your life.

4. I’ve given up on my perfect app search, but this is still soooo hard and overwhelming.

There are so many videos to watch and so many things to learn. I have a weird feeling where I logically agree with what Tiago is teaching, but there is still emotional resistance. What is that?

Eventually you realize: The things you are proudest of in life weren’t always easy. Struggling was essential for your first brain to learn. The emotional resistance is a sign you are onto something big. You realize the secret goal of the course is not only to change your second brain, but create radical paradigm shifts in your first brain as well.

5. I get it now and realize it’s an ongoing process.

Weirdly enough after all that struggle and overwhelm, you finally understand the high-level overview.

You’ve learned to incorporate what you need in your system. You have a second brain that you slowly iterate on. It frees up time and makes everything in your life a little easier. You have more time to do the human stuff. Like meditating, spending time with loved ones, and achieving a full-blown galaxy brain.

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Eventually y ou realize: Building a brain isn’t the end goal. After you build one, you don’t get to rest and watch the sunset like Thanos. It’s a tool to help you do everything else. It’s a tool that you refine on a needs basis.

You realize this course is a Trojan Horse. In learning how to Build a Second Brain, you ended up learning so much more. You learned about yourself. And even though it sounds a bit grandiose, about life. Your life has changed, and the journey was so worth it. 

You can’t wait to take another cohort and do it all over again.

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Project-Based Learning: Designing a Capstone Project

By Will Mannon, Forte Labs Course Manager

This memo outlines the Capstone Project that students will complete for Cohort 10 of Building a Second Brain (BASB). It was originally written for our internal team, but in the spirit of “working with the garage door open”, I’ve decided to share it here.

Overview

Each student will be asked to complete a Capstone Project of their choosing. Each student will have flexibility when choosing their project, but all projects should be:

creativechallenging (slightly beyond their current abilities)something that positively impacts otherssomething that can be shared publicly with otherssomething they couldn’t complete with their current skills, resources, and system of organizationPurpose 

Building a Second Brain students build systems for personal knowledge management. But we don’t create Second Brains merely for the sake of being organized. A Second Brain is meant to be used for some type of productive output. A Second Brain serves as a foundational platform from which creative work occurs. 

In past cohorts, students have asked questions about hypothetical scenarios involving their Second Brains – how would the system work if some hypothetical circumstance arose? Oftentimes these abstract questions are difficult to answer because they’re too theoretical.

Capstone Projects will make those hypothetical scenarios concrete. Each student will select some type of creative project that they’ll use their Second Brain to complete. This project will be the channel through which their new note-taking system is tested. Rather than asking about hypothetical scenarios, all questions will be filtered through the lens of their project. 

Projects will serve as a real-time “stress test” of their new note-taking system. Projects will also encourage students to stay engaged with BASB through the end of the course. Projects will serve as a forcing function to build a Second Brain system that actually works. To complete the project, they’ll have to capture and organize information, distill it into knowledge, then use that knowledge for creative work.  

There’s no reason to collect information and develop knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge should be used to have an impact on your life, and on the lives of others. Tiago shared the definition of knowledge transfer as “the process through which one person is affected by the experience of another.” The BASB Capstone Project will ensure that students’ Second Brains are being used to create an impact in the world, beyond the confines of their digital note-taking system. 

Areas of Focus 

Capstone Projects will fall under three general categories:

Creative projectsWork-related projectsPersonal life projects

While all capstone projects will involve creativity, creative projects will be focused on producing creative work to be shared publicly. These projects will be an expression of a personal area of interest, and can come in different forms and mediums. 

Examples of creative projects include: 

Write a long-form essay Start a blog Start a websiteStart an email newsletterMake a video (film or animated)Record a podcast (or podcast episode)Conduct an interview Create a work of art (painting, drawing, sculpting, etc)Create an online course Develop a software program or appCreate a Github portfolioDevelop an animation Hold a fundraiser Prepare and give a speech Create a unique data visualization

Work-related projects include any creative initiatives that contribute to your professional life. Examples include: 

Start a company newsletterPlan a team event (virtual, for now)Organize a customer-facing event Prepare a sales presentation Foster virtual community among a team or companyCreate a company WFH manual Complete an industry-specific project Create a company best-practices guideDesign a training program  Develop an internal software application Film a commercialCompile a knowledge base (ex: for internal company systems)Write and publish a personal career vision/roadmapLaunch a coaching businessCreate a job search toolkit (resume, informational interviews, cover letters)

Personal life projects will include any project relating to your personal life, likely involving family and friends, but which aren’t meant to be shared with a public audience. Examples include: 

Create a gift Plan an event (wedding, family reunion)Write and share a family newsletter Complete a creative household project Compile your family’s ancestry  Write a family history Organize a book club Organize and direct a play (for kids)Create a family cookbook Design a language learning plan Create a family budget planProject Guidelines

We will present the Capstone Project within the larger context of a project-based approach to work (whether that’s creative work, professional work, or personal work). 

Most people have ambitious goals that they never act on. These goals amount to feel-good wishes, always perfect in the imagination, but rarely put into action. The best way to produce impactful work is through an iterative, project-based approach. The project is a fundamental unit of work in the Information Age. We should explain this philosophy to students, so they understand why the Capstone Project is important, and so they’re encouraged to continue working on projects after the cohort ends.  

Students should think of their projects as a probe into an area of interest. Projects help you see what it’s like to work on something in a limited fashion. If the project goes well, you can always double down and continue working in that direction. If it doesn’t go well, you can pivot and work on something else. Each project is an experiment with a fast feedback loop.

To arrive at the proper scope for a project, we can ask students to envision a big-picture goal they hope to achieve. Then, they should scale down to about 1/10th of that ultimate vision. That’s the appropriate scope for their initial project. Completing a successful capstone project will give students momentum toward achieving their ultimate goal. 

Potential challenges

Students might have trouble choosing a project. Everyone will have until the second week to choose their Capstone Project. If students are having trouble deciding what to work on, they can refer to our list of suggested projects, talk with their alumni mentor, or ask for feedback on Circle. We could also hold a project brainstorming session in breakout rooms either during or directly after the first office hours. They should also trust their intuition – most people will have some sort of project they’ve been meaning to start, but haven’t yet. It’s easier to focus on a pre-existing area of interest, rather than trying to start on an entirely new path (although this rule won’t apply to everyone). 

Students might feel overwhelmed working on their project. It’s important that students aren’t choosing projects that are too broad to complete within five weeks. Projects should be challenging, but also manageable enough to finish by the first week of May. Alumni mentors should be trained on how to help students select a project, so they can give guidance on project topics and scope. 

Students might focus too much on their project, at the expense of the BASB curriculum.  The Capstone Project is important, but students still need to focus on developing their Second Brain system. The Second Brain is the foundation upon which all future projects will be based. An ineffective Second Brain will undermine future work, so it’s important for students to develop their PARA system, note-taking instincts, information capture habits, progressive summarization abilities, and just-in-time project management ability. While returning students may focus more of their energy on the Capstone Project, we should make sure that new students develop a solid BASB foundation.

Students might get discouraged when they see other project ideas. BASB attracts a high-caliber group of students. People will work on impressive projects. We should emphasize that everyone is taking this course at a different place in their life – we have PHDs and high-level executives, but also college students or people in their early career. We should explain that everyone’s project will be different, there’s no right way to complete the Capstone Project, and your project should serve you, and where you currently find yourself in your life. Comparison is the thief of joy.

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Tiago Forte on the Everything is Teachable Podcast

I recently sat down with Melissa Guller on the official Teachable podcast, Everything is Teachable. Teachable is the online learning platform we use to deliver all our programs.

In this episode, we talked about why I believe pre-produced content isn’t necessarily the best approach for online courses of any size. I made my most forceful case for why “live” courses, delivered through videocalls to cohorts of students, is a far more effective, profitable, and fun way to deliver online courses, for instructors and students alike.

I also shared the story of how my initial product – a book club – eventually turned into a workshop and then an online course, and how I look at creativity practically instead of mythically.

Listen to the interview below, or visit the Everything is Teachable website for the audio recording and full transcript.

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The One-Touch Guide to Doing a Weekly Review: How I Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes

There is a secret to radically improving your productivity – it’s called a Weekly Review.

It’s not a very secret secret. It’s a secret hiding in plain sight. We’ve all heard countless times that we should take some time each week to review our schedule and priorities for the week.

We’ve all heard it, but in my experience, strikingly few stick to it. Even hardcore productivity geeks find it incredibly difficult to maintain the habit. 

Here’s a recent Twitter poll in which only 38% of people said they regularly completed one, and this is for a productivity-obsessed audience:

I think I know why: most people’s idea of what a Weekly Review entails is fundamentally misconceived.

They think it’s a comprehensive “life review,” requiring hours of intense introspection. They think it’s an “overhaul” of their productivity systems, which likewise requires hours of concentration.

If you think you have to review every life goal, big and small, short-term and long-term, just to get clarity for tomorrow, of course you’ll avoid it.

Who has the time to undertake such a herculean feat in the midst of an already jam-packed week?

This tension – between the need to perform this valuable habit, and the impossibility of doing so – creates an incredible sense of guilt and even shame in so many people I work with. It burdens them with the fear that the linchpin of their productive life – what productivity guru David Allen calls the “master key” to personal productivity – is missing.

In this guide, I’ll reframe what a Weekly Review is and what it’s for – from a gargantuan endeavor to a short, quick, and easy habit that you’ll look forward to completing.

What is a weekly review?

Let’s start at the beginning: what exactly is a Weekly Review?

Let’s use an analogy to budgeting. What exactly do people mean when they say they “do budgeting”?

They sit down and review their budget categories, making small tweaks and updates and using their budget to make spending decisions for the week.

We have an intuitive sense of how long “budgeting” should take: maybe 15 minutes up to half an hour per week at most.

The only way to keep it that short is to not include things like making major financial decisions, rebalancing your investment portfolio, or reconsidering long-term financial goals.

We can’t afford to completely overhaul our finances every week. Not only because that would take WAY too much time and be way too stressful, but the power of an investing strategy is that it doesn’t change too often.

Every financial advisor will tell you not to try to “time the market.” They will advise against changing your investment goals with the wind. We want our money to compound, and compounding can only happen if we leave our money well enough alone.

All this makes perfect sense when applied to our finances. But now think about how most people conduct Weekly Reviews for their productivity.

They think they have to review their life goals, reorganize their desk and office, reevaluate every project they’re working on, reflect on their values and areas of responsibility, and much more.

I want to be clear: this is totally crazy.

Your productivity is just like your finances: it doesn’t work if it changes too often. You are investing your time and effort in very much the same way that you invest your money. But for your time and effort to compound, you have to leave your goals well enough alone.

If you are trying to completely overhaul your life goals every week, that is a recipe for chaos, not clarity. It means you are interrupting the pursuit of your goals in order to change your goals.

This is like Google Maps recalculating a new route to a new destination every 5 seconds – ensuring you arrive nowhere.

Your Weekly Review should be a quick check-in to give you clarity for the coming week, in the same way that a quick update of your budgets helps you navigate your weekly finances.

Specifically, your Weekly Review should accomplish three things:

Clear your digital workspaces: tidy up the virtual environment where you get things doneUpdate your available tasks: update your to do’s based on new information that’s come inDecide on your priorities for the week: select a subset of to do’s that you are actively committing to for this week

Each of these is essential, not “nice-to-have.” You absolutely must clear your digital workspaces in order to do your work. You have to update your list of available tasks as they stream in through email and other channels. And you have to decide on your top priorities for the week, so you know what to take action on next.

Since you have to do each of these tasks anyway, why not make them a bit more intentional, strategic, and efficient?

Your Weekly Review is all the tasks you have to do anyway, combined together into one checklist and streamlined for maximum efficiency. 

How to do a Weekly Review

I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time over the years testing, tweaking, and refining my Weekly Review.

I’ve tried long, comprehensive checklists that took me half a day, down to tiny check-ins that took minutes. I’ve tried automating it, streamlining it, and integrating it into my daily routines. I’ve even tried outsourcing it!

The results of all these experiments can be boiled down to this extremely simple, 5-point checklist:

EmailCalendarDesktop/DownloadsNotesTasks

I keep it in a digital “sticky note” in the corner of my computer screen, so I can reference it anytime:

This checklist is deceptively simple. But its purpose is profound: to take me from total chaos to total clarity about my priorities for the week in 30 minutes flat.

It doesn’t matter if I’m checking in after a couple calm days of work, or coming back from a 3-week vacation: I follow the exact same steps, in the exact same order, every time. This produces an almost meditative experience, with each step deeply embedded in my muscle memory.

To understand why each of these items is essential, it helps to understand each of them as an “inbox” where a certain kind of crucial information from the outside world is collected:

Email: emails from other peopleCalendar: calls and meetings at specific timesDesktop/Downloads: files and downloadsNotes: digital notes I’ve savedTasks: my to do’s

These 5 “digital inboxes” – your email inbox, your calendar, your computer desktop and downloads folder, your digital notes app, and your task manager – are absolute essentials for knowledge workers. Each one is like a holding area, storing incoming pieces of information until I’m ready to deal with them.

When I sit down to focus on one thing, I need to be able to completely shut off all communication channels and be shielded from interruptions. But I can’t shut myself off from the outside world if I don’t have the confidence that anything new will be reliably captured somewhere.

Even if I manage to completely turn off all notifications, my own mind will interrupt me if I’m not certain that I’ll be able to come back and catch up on it all.

This diagram illustrates how a Weekly Review functions as a “sweep” across your digital inboxes, with each step flowing into the following one so you only have to “touch each item once”:

Let’s examine what each step entails. Each step includes a video where I walk through what it looks like as part of my own Weekly Review on a typical Monday morning. You can view the full playlist on YouTube here.

Step One: Email

As the main source of new tasks for most knowledge workers, email has the biggest influence on everything that comes after. That’s why we want to start here – so that we’re making all subsequent decisions with the latest updates in mind.

But starting with email also introduces a huge pitfall that nearly everyone falls victim to: getting sucked into the vortex of replying and taking action on emails.

If you fall into this vortex, I can guarantee that you won’t escape. You’ll spend the rest of the day fighting fires, reacting to emergencies, and watching with dismay as more emails just continue to pour in.

The key here is to follow One-Touch to Inbox Zero, my guide to setting up your email in such a way that you can “touch each email only once.” If you stick to this guideline, and learn to decide what needs to be done about each email, instead of doing it, you can get through many dozens of emails within minutes.

Inbox Zero is a powerful starting point, and this guide builds on it, showing you what to do with all the items you’ve cleared from your email inbox while continuing to follow the principle of “touch each item only once.”

Notice that by clearing our email inbox first, certain items “flow” into the other inboxes we’ll be checking next:

For example, you may notice an email invite for an upcoming call, and add that to your calendar for tomorrow. You might see an attachment and download it to your Downloads folder for later review. You could save a snippet of text from an email as a digital note. And of course many emails will have associated tasks that you want to save in your task manager.

You can take each of these actions with full confidence that you’ll close the loop in the subsequent steps. That is the confidence you need to hit “archive” on each email and move to the next one.

Step Two: Calendar

Your calendar comes next. David Allen calls it the “hard landscape” of your day – it’s not just the things you’d like to get done at a certain time, but the things that must happen at a certain time. If you miss an email, it’s not such a big deal, but if you miss an appointment, the consequences could be severe.

In this step, I start by scanning my calendar two weeks into the past, looking for any followup actions I need to take. These could include sending a thank you note to someone I met with, following up on a decision that we made as a team, or writing down a task that someone else is waiting on me for. Following up is a superpower!

Next, I scan my calendar about four weeks into the future, to get a sense of what’s coming up soon. This often surfaces events or meetings I need to prepare for, important dates like birthdays and anniversaries, or approaching decisions that I need to start thinking about.

In any case, if I find any action I need to take – sometimes referred to as an “open loop” – I hit the “quick capture” shortcut on my keyboard (which I have set to control-space bar) and capture it in my task manager, Things. 

Just as in the previous step, any items that need further action get funneled down into subsequent steps. Appointments you encounter on your calendar, both past and future, often trigger ideas for associated notes or tasks, which you can capture in seconds using a quick capture feature like the one above.

Step Three: Desktop/Downloads

Now I’m starting to get a sense of what’s on my plate for the week. But I don’t want to stop here!

Next it’s time to clear my digital workspaces – the places where I keep the files and documents I need to do my daily work. In my case, those are my computer desktop and downloads folder, where files I download or receive as email attachments collect.

Somehow, over the course of the week these places always become cluttered with random documents of unknown origin.

For each file, I quickly look at what it is, and then either send it straight to the trash, add it to my computer file system or digital notes app (following my PARA organizing system), or capture it in my task manager using the quick capture shortcut. 

Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter below and I’ll send you my two-page cheat sheet with everything you need to know to organize your digital life using PARA.

This step is all about keeping your workspaces clean, removing the clutter that subconsciously stresses you out, and making sure nothing is falling through the cracks. It’s like Marie Kondo’s tidying method, but for your digital environment.

It might seem unimportant to regularly clear these places, but check out my experiment with Desktop Zero for examples of the surprisingly valuable stuff you can find there. Some of these files represent real intellectual effort you’ve put in, and you want to be sure to save them for the future.

Once again, items found on the desktop and and in the downloads folder often become notes or tasks, flowing down into buckets that you’ll pick back up on in a few minutes:

Step Four: Notes

By the time you’ve completed the first three steps, you’ve probably captured a bunch of new notes. They could be snippets of text you saved from important emails, bullet-point agendas for upcoming meetings on your calendar, or files you want to preserve from your computer desktop.

I use and recommend the popular notes app Evernote (affiliate link), because of its simplicity and ability to capture content from a wide variety of sources. I teach an online course called Building a Second Brain where I lead students through the process of building their own note-taking system, which is so powerful that I call it a “Second Brain.”

Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter below and I’ll send you my series on the 7 critical mindset shifts you can make to fully leverage the power of digital notes.

You’ll also encounter other notes you might have saved over the course of the week from other sources, like articles you’ve read or random ideas you’ve had. This step serves as a useful “review” of the interesting notes I’ve taken during the week, which I might want to be reminded of.

By collecting all of your notes in a single, centralized notes app, you can now file them away all at once, in one big batch. I usually find that I create about 15-30 notes per week, and it takes me no more than 5 minutes to move them into notebooks.

In step four, you’ll continue to encounter open loops that can be distilled down into your task manager. A note on web design might trigger an idea to send to your web designer. A note you took from a book you’re reading triggers an idea to talk over with your boss. A clip you saved from an article triggers an idea for how to improve your product development process.

If a note triggers an idea for an associated task, you can use the same quick capture shortcut I showed you previously to capture it. Instead of trying to copy content from one app into another, I just copy the link to the note right into the task, as demonstrated in the video above. Whenever I decide to take that action, I’ll be able to bring up the note with just a click.

Step Five: Tasks

All 4 of the inboxes I’ve cleared so far feed into what I am ultimately seeking: a succinct, yet comprehensive list of tasks that I know represent the most important priorities for just this week.

As you might expect, by this point my task manager inbox is full of lots of different tasks from across my life. I like to batch process these tasks all at once, deciding for each one:

What the next action is: make sure the task is as clear as possibleWhat priority it is: apply a tag for High or Medium priority (if it’s low priority I don’t apply any tag)Which project or area it falls into: move it into the most actionable project or area of responsibility

This might seem like a lot of decisions, but by using shortcuts and doing them all at once, it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes.

The key is to be as selective as possible, only applying the “high priority” tag if it truly must be done this week. Otherwise I risk creating a list that doesn’t seem feasible to complete, which kills my motivation. And I know I’ll come back and select a new round of tasks for next week, so I’m free to leave most of them off the list.

Once I’m done processing my inbox, it’s time to choose the tasks that I’m actually committing to this week. I use the “Today list” feature of my task manager, but nearly every other task manager app has similar functionality. The point is that you need some way of selecting a subset of your total task list to focus on, instead of being faced with every possible task you could complete, which is completely overwhelming.

To choose my Today list (which is really my This Week list), I filter my tasks by priority, and choose the ones that I want to focus on this week, as demonstrated in the video above. This is an intuitive process of deciding what I can take action on, what I need to take action on, and what I want to take action on. By having all the potential tasks I could possibly choose from laid out in front of me in one view, each one succinct and clear, this process is vastly easier than it would be otherwise.

For each task I want to add to Today, I select it and press the Things shortcut, command-t. Once on the Today list, I can put tasks under headings I’ve created so I know exactly when they should be completed. I’ve now created a concise, clear, prioritized list of tasks to guide my actions for the week, available at a glance on my computer or mobile device when I’m out and about.

Think about the incredible amount of information encompassed in this list. In the process of reviewing my week, I’ve ALSO completely reset and refreshed my digital world:

My email inbox is empty, with any tasks extracted and prioritized in my task managerMy calendar is fresh in my mind, both hard and soft commitmentsMy computer folders are empty and waiting for the next round of downloads, their contents organized so I can find them easilyMy notes inbox is empty, all the ideas and insights stored where they’ll be most usefulMy task manager inbox is empty, all the new open loops neatly filed away

At this point, I can put to rest all my fears about what I might be missing. I can sit down and focus on doing my best work, because my mind is completely dedicated to the task at hand, not keeping track of open loops in the background.

This is the secret to total commitment – knowing that each and every new piece of information has been considered on an equal playing field.

Most conventional productivity advice tells us to focus all our attention on what we have to do “today” or “right now.” But the truth is, our To Do list is the endpoint, not the starting line. 

It is the end result of a cascading process, with information flowing in from multiple channels before being distilled down to a succinct To Do list that summarizes everything I need to know to take action.

If you’d like to learn more about this approach to managing a digital To Do list, check out my self-paced course Get Stuff Done Like a Boss, where I teach people in about 2 hours how to organize a task manager and use it to execute far more effectively.

Preventative maintenance for the mind

Every profession requires preventative maintenance to keep things running smoothly.

Firefighters have to check their gear and make sure pumps are in working order. Pilots have to do systems checks every time they fly. Surgeons have to make sure their instruments are sanitized and neatly laid out before surgery.

But when it comes to knowledge work, we act as if preventative maintenance isn’t required. We let our email inboxes pile sky-high, continue dumping hundreds of files into every corner of our computer, stick any random thing onto our calendar, and have to do’s scattered across any number of places.

Is it any wonder that our digital lives are a mess? That doing our work invokes such an incredible amount of stress and anxiety? That we find ourselves constantly overwhelmed by information?

We tend to cast the blame outward, on a so-called epidemic of “Information Overload.” But let me tell you, not everyone is overwhelmed with information. I’m certainly not. There is another way. If we really want to be empowered instead of overwhelmed, the solution won’t be found in changing the external world. We have to look inward, at our fundamental lack of preparation in the face of a complex world.

When I say “preventative maintenance,” I don’t mean the physical hardware of your devices. That’s important too, but modern technology is so capable that very little maintenance is needed.

I’m talking about preventative maintenance of the mind. I’m talking about the care and feeding of the most advanced yet also the most fragile machine in the universe: the human brain.

What’s so difficult about maintaining the mind is that it’s so adaptable. You can ignore this maintenance for a long time, and there don’t seem to be any repercussions.

But underneath the surface, the chaos is accumulating.

A file lost in your downloads folder that you promised to send to a client is ticking like a time bomb. The deadline to register for an important conference isn’t reflected on your calendar, and the consequences of missing it are looming like a storm. A brilliant idea you saved to your notes goes undetected until it’s too late, like that funky smell in the back of the fridge.

This chaos only becomes apparent when it breaks out onto the surface. When everything seems to break down at once, which usually happens at the worst possible moment. Like a car breaking down on the highway during a long family road trip, our systems tend to collapse at the moment of maximum stress.

Your phone runs out of space mid-meeting just as you need to take a photo of an important slide. The next browser tab you open for an urgent task is the one that crashes your computer. A request from your boss gets missed because your email inbox is in total disarray. 

These are the “accidents” that are, in fact, totally inevitable when you don’t maintain your tools and your environment. 

The Weekly Review is preventative maintenance for your mind, no more and no less. It is a weekly standing appointment with yourself, with one item on the agenda: get back to order and clarity. It is the one time when you evaluate all your potential commitments on equal terms, and make decisions about what stays and what goes. It is a purge of the low-level thinking clogging your brain, leaving your mind free for its best creative thinking.

If you aren’t doing or haven’t done a Weekly Review, it’s not a reflection on your character or self-discipline. It’s not your fault – it’s the fault of an outdated system of education that never taught you how to do preventative maintenance for your brain, your most important tool and asset.

If you’ve resisted doing it until now, it’s a sign that your subconscious has been looking out for you. It’s known that spending hours to review every aspect of your life was neither helpful nor necessary. It has resisted what it knows is a flawed exercise.

The quick-and-easy approach to doing a Weekly Review that I’ve shared with you in this guide is a tool. It’s a reliable tool for gaining clarity anytime you need it. It provides a way to shield yourself from the constant onslaught of new information, without losing touch with reality. It provides a clear milestone where you get to feel a sense of completion and celebrate a week well spent.

French novelist Gustav Flaubert once said, “Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

How to do so is no longer a mystery: your Weekly Review is the regular and orderly part, and the violently original part is everything else you are free to do knowing that you can return to order in just 30 minutes.

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The post The One-Touch Guide to Doing a Weekly Review: How I Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes appeared first on Forte Labs.

The Automation of Note-Taking and the Just-In-Time Future of Work

Cover image “beauty in the brains” by bedelgeuse

A student recently asked me, “How do you have the self-discipline to open up your notes app every time you encounter an interesting idea?”

Suddenly I realized: I don’t.

It’s so critical that note-taking be easy and frictionless, that even opening an app is too much of a barrier in many cases.

To overcome that hurdle, I’ve adopted a series of tools and techniques over the years to automatically save content I find interesting to my notes app, Evernote.

In most cases, this happens completely in the background and doesn’t even require me to open the app.

When I do open it up, there are dozens of fascinating notes waiting in my inbox, quietly routed from across my digital world through an invisible underground infrastructure.

It’s pretty awesome.

I’ve realized through this experience that I’ve seriously underestimated the importance of automating one’s note-taking so that it takes as little effort as humanly possible. A series of technological leaps over the last 15 years has made such automation possible for the first time.

Technology helps us perform tasks more efficiently, but past a certain point, it takes over so much work previously done by humans that it changes the very nature of that work. It allows us to leap into a future where old assumptions no longer apply.

It’s time to question the basic purpose of note-taking in a world of increasingly powerful technological capabilities.

What we have automated

The following six aspects of note-taking have been partially or completely automated by modern technology:

Taking notes
Titling notes
Searching notes
Linking notes
Filing notes
Sharing notes

Taking notes once consumed countless hours of human effort. In the era of paper and pencil, it required significant effort to find the right notebook, turn to a blank page, and write down an idea.

But now, many kinds of notes can be created automatically or with minimal effort:

Highlighted passages in ebooks can be automatically saved to your notes app through services like Readwise
Highlights from online articles or web pages can be imported to your digital notes using an app like Instapaper
Emails can be forwarded directly to many popular notes apps such as Microsoft OneNote
Bookmarks and screenshots can be saved directly from within web browsers using “web clippers” from Evernote, Bear, and Notion
Conversations and meetings can be recorded and auto-transcribed using services like Otter or Rev
Social media posts can be saved with one click using free services like IFTTT
Photos taken on smartphone cameras can be directly shared to a notes app with a few taps
Handwritten notes can be photographed and searched using apps like Evernote

These tools and integrations are like a digital keychain that I know I always have with me. But instead of opening physical doors, they open the digital doorways that give me access to a vast wealth of knowledge online. 

Now that we can save all kinds of content with a swipe of our finger, our time and energy are freed up to focus on what we do with those notes.

Titling notes once took serious thought. The title was the only way to tell what a note contained, so wording it exactly right the first time was essential. But now, software can automatically detect the name of the article or webpage we’re taking notes on. And if we want to change the title later, it takes mere seconds.

Searching our notes for specific information was once an incredibly time-consuming process. Google reshaped the world with its search engine, and that technology is just as powerful when searching our own personal note collections. With a search, every word in the note effectively becomes a keyword, eliminating the need to index, catalogue, or manually tag our notes.

Linking notes to each other was once very labor-intensive and prone to error. It involved copying ID numbers from one note to another and hoping you didn’t miss a letter or digit. But we can now create direct hyperlinks between notes that are completely independent of where the note is located. This allows you to change a note’s title, location, or contents without breaking any links.

Filing notes was once an essential step that had to be done perfectly the first time. The categories had to be created before the notes, which was challenging when you didn’t yet know what kind of content you would be collecting. But the structure of notes now exists independently of its contents: you are free to move content from one place to another, change the titles of notes, or move or rename entire folders, all without breaking any links or losing any content.

Finally, sharing notes has become radically easier. Sharing our ideas is now as easy as entering someone’s email address or copying and pasting a link. No longer do we have to give someone an entire notebook, rip out pages, or struggle with photocopiers.

Cultivating our idea gardens

With the automation of note-taking, the potential of our notes has finally been unleashed.

They now have the potential to become like “idea gardens.” Full of winding pathways that extend out into surrounding forests, our ideas can extend and overlap with the ideas of others.

As we trade, link to, and mix our notes with those of others, it becomes hard to say where “our” knowledge ends and the knowledge of others begins.

When moving around the content of our notes takes just a moment, the decision of how to organize them becomes like play – a fluid act of testing how ideas might fit together in different combinations. The structure of your notes becomes its own fluid and creative medium that adapts as quickly as your needs change.

Free from the demands of meticulous cataloguing and transcribing, our work actually becomes more concentrated and more strategic. Our attention now must shift to the work that only humans can do, including:

Seeing patterns and connections
Finding contradictory or disconfirming information
Defining and structuring our work
Taking effective action

Let’s examine each of these.

Seeing patterns and connections

One of the few tasks human brains can still perform far better than any computer is pattern recognition.

It is in many ways what our brains evolved to do – to recognize the pattern of a predator’s eyes in a dark jungle, the pattern of a rival tribe’s war cry in the distance, or the pattern of disapproval on a loved one’s face.

In modern times, seeing the patterns and connections amidst a seemingly unrelated collection of ideas is also at the heart of creativity. As psychiatrist and neuroscientist Nancy C. Andreasen concludes from her research on creativity, “…creative people are better at recognizing relationships, making associations and connections…”

In order for this pattern recognition to work, we require certain conditions. We need to see many different kinds of information, in different formats, all juxtaposed together in random combinations.

These conditions are difficult to find in the physical world, but notes apps are designed for exactly this kind of randomness and serendipity. They are the only category of software that allows us to store many different kinds of content in one place. That content may include voice memos, scanned paper documents, book quotes, snippets of text, handwritten notes, PDFs, screenshots, photos, webpages, and so much more.

Like scrambling Scrabble letters to see which words jump out at us, we need to be able to shuffle our notes around to generate new insights. We can only do this if we are confident that the underlying software is keeping track of it all. We need to know that as we remix and play with our ideas, sources won’t get lost, links won’t break, and context won’t be forgotten.

Finding contradictory or disconfirming information

Note-taking was once primarily used to find supporting evidence. Information was so hard to find that we had to spend tremendous amounts of time seeking facts and examples to support our arguments.

But all the supporting evidence we could ever want is now just a Google search away. In fact, we may have gone too far in that direction, spending much of our time in “filter bubbles” that only reinforce what we already know.

It’s now more important to do the opposite: finding information that contradicts or disconfirms what we know. This can’t be automated, because it isn’t just a matter of finding the right keywords. It requires human intelligence to understand how a new finding contradicts another.

Discovering information that contradicts what we currently believe is the new frontier of learning. Our thinking only improves when it can withstand criticism and contradiction. Otherwise, we never know for sure if our ideas make a difference in the real world.

Defining and structuring our work

Our technology is still limited by the fact that it doesn’t actually understand the meaning of the information we collect. It can handle information in many impressive ways, but deciding what is important, what it means, and why it matters is still the domain of humans.

This is known as “meta-work” – the process of defining and structuring our work. It includes setting goals and priorities, predicting obstacles and problems, and noticing strategic opportunities when they appear.

By automating much of the low-level work of capturing, organizing, and keeping track of content, digital notes apps give us back the time we need to engage in this meta-work. They allow us to elevate our perspective and take in the big picture, knowing that our technology is handling the details in the background.

Taking effective action

Even the most advanced technology lacks one crucial element: agency.

At the end of the day, after everything is organized, prioritized, and scheduled, only humans can decide to act on that information. To advocate, persuade, influence, and implement.

Every other aspect of note-taking has been dramatically streamlined, but taking effective action is as rare as ever. It might even be getting more difficult as we are inundated with ever more options. Action is now our bottleneck, and our entire approach to note-taking needs to be reorganized around it.

What matters now is not how many inputs you have to your notes, but the output that you achieve with them. It is the output that makes the difference. It is the output that gives you an outstanding career, a thriving business, and a stellar reputation.

The true purpose of our notes is not to trace where we came from, it is to point the way toward where we’re going.

The Future of Work Is Just-in-Time

Note-taking in the past was a scholarly exercise for researchers, scientists, theorists, and historians.

But now, all of us have to not only sift through vast amounts of information, but we also have to organize and deploy that information to achieve specific goals while juggling a jam-packed schedule.

Most of us are not academics building an ivory tower of theoretical knowledge. We are on the ground and in the field, inching our goals forward through a relentless storm of noise and chaos. We are crafters of knowledge, wrestling information into practical solutions to our everyday problems.

The automation of note-taking has ushered in a simple but all-encompassing change in the way we work: Instead of working “just-in-case,” we need to work “just-in-time.”

In the old world of paper notes, when a tremendous amount of human labor was required to capture information, everything had to be done “just-in-case.”

Carefully write down a quote just in case, give it an ID number just in case, think of a good title just in case, cite your sources just in case, precisely categorize it just in case, etc. The entire process of note-taking was front-loaded, requiring considerable work just to get new information into the system.

But today, because we can capture so much valuable content with close to zero effort, it makes more sense to just let notes collect and postpone the work of figuring out how to use them for later.

Because I can capture so much more information, I know not all of the notes I capture will end up being useful. So I want to avoid investing time into them until I know they will be useful.

There is a difference between notes you take in the spur of the moment and those that will become long-term intellectual assets. But it isn’t always clear which is which, and forcing yourself to make that decision upfront takes energy that would be much better spent creating value now.

Once you realize this, your priorities around note-taking change.

Values such as completeness, precision, and comprehensiveness suddenly become much less important. Other values, such as usefulness, contradiction, and interestingness, come to the forefront instead. In a world where our quality of life is directly linked to the quality of our thinking, we have to prioritize the impact of our ideas.

Everyone’s work is becoming more knowledge-centric. That is, the decisive factor in our careers and businesses is no longer how many hours we work, the effort we put in, or how much we sacrifice. It is what we know – our knowledge – that makes the difference. And that knowledge is created through the act of taking notes.

Ideas have the potential to shape the trajectory of our lives, our careers, our families, our communities, our organizations, and even entire nations. We must take seriously the way we collect and organize them. They are not merely for entertainment or private reflection.

Ideas matter to the future – ideas create the future.

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The post The Automation of Note-Taking and the Just-In-Time Future of Work appeared first on Forte Labs.

Own Your Writing Platform

Publishing a book is like running for political office.

There are a lot of people out there who you want to take a certain action, at a certain time and place in the future. With political campaigning, that action is to vote. With book campaigning, it is to buy your book.

In both cases, you need to do many of the same things: meeting people, connecting with existing communities, attending conferences and events, publishing content online, and generally making yourself known in the network that you’ll eventually need to propel you to success.

Here’s what most aspiring writers don’t realize: most of this campaigning needs to happen before you begin writing your book, before you have a proposal, and even before you decide on an idea. Approaching a publisher is actually the last step, not the first, because the first thing they will want to know is how big your “platform” is. 

How big is your platform?

The answer to this question outweighs every other part of your proposal combined. It proves that there is a market for your book, instead of just claiming it. Look at it from the publisher’s point of view: would you rather invest in an author who has proven demand for their ideas, or one who is pretty sure people will want to buy their book?

Best-selling author and marketing expert Seth Godin puts it this way: “If you don’t have an asset already—a ‘permission base’ of thousands or tens of thousands of people, a popular blog, thousands of employees, a personal relationship with Willard Scott — then it’s too late to start building that asset once you start working on a book. My best advice? Build an asset. Large numbers of influential people who read your blog or read your emails or watch your TV show or love your restaurant.”

Whether it’s called a platform, a permission base, or an asset, the bottom line is that you need a ready and willing audience for your writing. A sizable group of people who know you, trust you, and already like what you have to say. Without an existing group of highly engaged potential buyers, your only option is to rely on the the platforms of others. Even if you can somehow gain access to them, the price they extract will be so steep that you’ll question if it’s even worth it.

Other examples of platforms you can use to boost your credibility include a successful speaking career, a track record as an expert in the media, demonstrable expertise or recognition within a particular field, a social media following of thousands, or a major YouTube audience.

But more and more, having a platform means having an online platform. The power of the Internet, and its ability to distribute your writing around the world virtually for free, is simply too great to ignore. 

Whether through social media, an email newsletter, or a YouTube following, having an online platform allows you to:

Expose yourself to an infinite world of ideas and storiesInstantly connect to sources of information and knowledgeable expertsPlug into trends so you know what’s hot and what’s notTest-drive your materialFind your community and future audienceBecome an active citizen in your communityDevelop and/or expand your platform and brandDemonstrate to a publisher that lots of people will buy your bookRaise the profile of your name and workSell lots and lots of books

Having an influential platform may seem difficult, but the good news is you don’t need to become a mainstream celebrity to publish a successful book. We live in the age of the “long tail” – a term coined by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine to describe the almost infinite number of tiny niches that we see thriving on the Internet.

Anderson says, “When consumers are offered infinite choice, the true shape of demand is revealed. And it turns out to be less hit-centric and mainstream than we thought. People gravitate toward niches because they satisfy narrow interests better, and in one aspect of our life or another we all have some narrow interest (whether we think of it that way or not).”

Owning your platform

While it can be tempting to build your platform on an existing network, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or one of the new generation of social networks, at the end of the day you need to own your platform.

Facebook only shows your posts to a small percentage of the people even in groups you manage. Twitter accounts get blocked all the time. YouTube videos get demonetized due to the smallest of violations, such as frivolous copyright strikes. 

While you can and should use these platforms to get started, at the end of the day you have to own your own platform. It is the only way to control your own destiny and not be at the mercy of a corporation’s changing policies.

Owning your platform comes down to two things:

Owning your websiteOwning your email list

Your website is like the headquarters and command center for everything you do. All the links you post across the web should lead back here, like all the roads leading back to Rome.

And what do visitors find when they arrive there? Everything that you have to build your credibility, make it easy for them to consume your writing, and sign up for more. 

Here are some things you can and should include on your website:Your writing: Chapters you’ve completed or are workshopping, personal essays, rants and raves, how-to articles, opinions on anything and everything — whatever your audience will be interested in reading.Your bio: Put fun and interesting facts about yourself in this section. Nowadays, journalists and bloggers go directly to personal websites to get their facts straight, and if something catches their fancy, they’re more likely to write about it. Photos: Photos are eye candy that draw visitors in, so feel free to go to town. Reviews and interviews by or about you: Press begets press and reader interest. Resource section: Post items of interest to you and your readers. Calendar of events: Lectures, workshops, or guest appearances you’ll make; these can be physical events or online events.Videos of yourself: Talking about, reading aloud, and/or performing excerpts from your book. Readers like to see and hear you.An easy way to sign up for your mailing list or newsletter: Your mailing list is extremely important, even if you’re a literary fiction writer. When people give you their names and email addresses, they are telling you they want to hear from you. Contact information: Definitely list at least one way for people to get in touch with you.Links to outside sites: Direct visitors to your Facebook and Twitter accounts (or whatever other social networking sites you happen to be on) and your recommended blogs.Your email list, on the other hand, is your distribution system. It represents your most committed readers who have specifically asked you to notify them when you have something to share. Imagine that? Emails are among the most personal of messages you can send. They arrive directly in your readers’ inboxes – the same place they receive messages from their colleagues, managers, clients, and closest family and friends. Emails are one-to-many, but are delivered in a way that makes each one feel like a personal message. Emails are very affordable to send, and you don’t pay on a per-email basis. 

Best of all, you can take an email list with you. Unlike Twitter followers or Facebook friends, that list can be downloaded and taken to any other Email Service Provider (ESP). Which means you are never at the mercy of your provider’s whims.

As long as you own your website – your online HQ – and your email list – your direct channel to your readers – you’ll always be free to navigate the Internet without risk.

The power of the pitch

One of the most common mistakes writers make is underestimating the power of the pitch. 

There are so many people in the publishing process who will need to quickly get the gist of your idea. Your pitch is the calling card for your book at each and every step in its journey.

Your pitch should make a promise: to educate, challenge, amuse, romance, inspire, or entertain. It has to make a promise that your book completely delivers on. Your pitch should make an impression and leave them wanting more. It needs to be catchy, juicy, and attention-grabbing. It should make them respond, “I can’t wait to read that book” or “I know someone who would love this book.”

Start developing your pitch as early as possible. Try out different variations in your writing, in conversations, and on social media. Look out for enthusiastic reactions, eyes lighting up, and the words “Tell me more.” A pitch is the earliest manifestation of your book and its promise – it needs to catch people’s attention in a matter of seconds. 

Here are some examples:

The South Beach Diet: The delicious, doctor-designed, foolproof plan for fast and healthy weight lossThe Quants: How a new breed of math whizzes conquered Wall Street and nearly destroyed itThe Happiness Project: Or, why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right, read Aristotle, and generally have more funTrattoria: Healthy, simple robust fare inspired by the small family restaurants of ItalySame Kind of Different As Me: A modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them togetherThe Happiest Baby on the Block: The new way to calm your crying baby and help your newborn baby sleep longerThe Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter-acre!

Delivery is everything in a pitch. Practice in the shower, in the mirror, on video, and in front of friends. Then start pitching everybody, everywhere. The more you practice your pitch, the more it will roll off your tongue with confidence.

In the next post, we’ll examine the process of writing a proposal to sell the idea for you book to a publisher.

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The post Own Your Writing Platform appeared first on Forte Labs.