Tiago Forte's Blog, page 27

Evaluating Your Book Idea

In the beginning, is a message.

You have something to say. A message that wants to get out of you. That needs to get out of you or else it will keep you up every night and drive you crazy.

At some point, the idea occurs to you like a voice from heaven, “I should write a book.” It’s a terrifying, wildly unreasonable idea. Your identity is bent out of shape just thinking about it.

Could I be a writer? Could my writing be published for others to read? And most outrageous of all, could I get paid to do that writing?

The good news is, there are more publishing options than ever before. We are living in the midst of an explosion of publishing unseen since the first printing press. Absolutely anyone can publish a book today, in some shape or form, with a little perseverance.

The bad news is, there are more publishing options than ever before. Where once the requirements at least were clear, and the gatekeepers known, now there are only hundreds of decisions to make each and every step of the way. 

My idea began with an online course called Building a Second Brain. The message developed slowly over several years, through my writing, teaching, speaking, and coaching. Only gradually, as I began to see there were timeless principles that didn’t depend on any particular technology, did I start to think about turning it into a book.

As you consider whether a traditional book deal would be right for you, there are six main factors to consider: Audience, Competition, Marketability, Potential costs, “Why me?”, and Sales potential. Let’s discuss what each entails.

Audience

The first question to clarify for yourself is, who exactly will purchase this book? 

It is essential that your answer not be a hope or a wish. You absolutely must test it in the real world. Write about your ideas and collect feedback online. Start a book club or discussion group to learn about people’s needs and problems. Try teaching it in a live setting at work, in a coworking space, or on Zoom.

The more specific you can be about who that audience is, the easier it will be for others to envision them. Start a list of magazines and newspapers they read, TV shows and podcasts they consume, and blogs and social media accounts they follow. Even better, start a blog, podcast, or email newsletter so you can become the source they go to for information and advice.

Questions to ask:

Who will be interested in reading your book? Is there a big enough audience?Competition

One of the first questions you will be asked is, what is the competitive landscape?

The book market isn’t a blank slate. Your book will not be the only one on its topic. You are connecting to a web of conversations and an existing culture around productivity or cooking, love or gardening, or whatever it is you want to speak to. It is critical that you understand that existing context – what is working and what isn’t, what people are saying and what they’re missing, and what need isn’t being met by current books.

Begin by starting a list of similar or competing books. You can visit one of these books’ pages on Amazon, and then follow the rabbit trail of “recommended titles” until you have a good list. Buy these books, read them, and take good notes. You need to start seeing your niche objectively, in terms of business potential, which requires a completely different lens than you’re used to as a writer.

Questions to ask:

What other books like yours are already out there? How much do they cost? How are they marketed?Marketability

Your book proposal is really a business proposal. You are asking a large corporation to invest a significant amount of money to build an operation that everyone hopes will be profitable. There is just as much risk and potential reward in publishing a book as in starting a business. And the failure rates are also similar – approximately 90% of published books never earn back their advance and thus never make money. 

You should start paying attention to how books you consider a success were published. Especially books in your niche. Poke around bookstores and libraries and visit topical websites. Subscribe to the email newsletters of the authors you admire and join their communities. They will be your peers and your readers, so start building relationships early. Your goal is to develop an understanding of the zeitgeist, so you can capture it with your book.

Questions to ask:

Do you have a way to reach your audience? What skills and contacts do you possess that would help get the word out?What is unique about your book that the media might pick up on? Which publications or blogs might write about you and your book? Which online communities could you reach out to? Which influencers or thought leaders or media personalities could you reach out to? What kinds of organizations or groups might be interested in your book?Which trends in society or the media does your book relate to?Potential costs

Depending on your book, you may need a budget to purchase the rights to photos, illustrations, or excerpts from other authors, or for a book tour. These costs add up quickly, so consider which of them will be essential.

Questions to ask:

How much will you have to pay for necessary photographs and/or excerpts by other authors? Will you need to travel?The “Why me?” factor

This question will appear throughout the process of developing your book proposal. It’s smart to have a compelling answer ready. Publishers will want to know why your expertise and experience make you not only a good person to write this book, but the perfect and only person to write it.

Questions to ask:

Why are you the person to write this book? What do you have to say that’s new and different?Sales potential

Everything in your proposal must ultimately build toward justifying the sale for each of the gatekeepers you will face.

The first gatekeeper you have to satisfy is the publisher, and having strong answers for each of the questions above will be essential for making the case for your book.

You must become an expert at answering the question, “Why would a publisher, a bookstore, and eventually a reader plunk down money to buy your book?”

In the next post, we’ll look more closely at what it takes to develop an audience and test your idea to make sure it is something people want to read. 

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The post Evaluating Your Book Idea appeared first on Forte Labs.

The Complete Guide to Landing a Book Deal

I recently signed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster for my book Building a Second Brain. 

As a first-time author, and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in a generation, this is a spectacular outcome. It took a year of hard work, a team of editors and advisors, and countless proposal drafts and revisions, along with a heavy dose of luck.

My guide through this process was The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (affiliate link), recommended to me by my agent as an industry standard. It is a monster 500-page book detailing everything (and I mean everything) you would ever want to know about landing a book publishing deal.

This series is a summarized collection of insights drawn from this book, other published sources, and my own experience. I’ll do my best to focus on the most interesting, unusual, counterintuitive, or important pieces of advice for writers interested in one day navigating the waters of the publishing world.

My hope is that it gives those of you who are just beginning your writing journey a better window into the process. That it helps you be more strategic about publishing your writing while avoiding common mistakes and pitfalls.

The 3 Paths to Publishing

There are essentially three paths you can take to publish your book:

Traditional publishing through the “Big 5” publishing houses (HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan)Independent presses that range in size from fairly large ones (like W.W. Norton), to smaller university presses, to one-person shopsSelf-publishing, such as on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform

There are many factors to consider when choosing which of these routes to take. There is no “correct” path for everyone, or for every book. 

The pathway you choose depends on your abilities, your preferences, and your goals. I’ve previously written about the pros and cons of each of them in The Four Pathways of Modern Book Publishing, explained why I chose traditional publishing to advance my own goals in The Case for Traditional Publishing for Full-Stack Freelancers, and laid out my publishing strategy in My 10-Step Book Publishing Strategy.

In this series, I’m going to focus on the first option – signing a book deal with a Big 5 publisher – and on the first all-important milestone in that journey – landing a publishing deal for your book.

We’ll start at the point where you have a book idea and are ready to start writing a proposal for it. Even if you’re not at that point yet, knowing what it will look like when you get there can help you decide whether you even want to try. 

I suggest you view this as a practical guide if you’re already an experienced writer, or as a window into a normally opaque industry if you’re not. My goal is simply to help you understand what it looks like and what it takes to succeed in the traditional publishing game.

Here are the topics we’ll cover in the rest of the series:

Evaluating Your Book IdeaOwn Your Writing PlatformCrafting the proposalAssembling the teamThe Ins and Outs of OffersTerms and conditionsWriting your bookLaunching your book Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

The post The Complete Guide to Landing a Book Deal appeared first on Forte Labs.

The Comprehensive Guide to Landing a Book Deal

I recently signed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster for my book Building a Second Brain. 

As a first-time author, and in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in a generation, this is a spectacular outcome. It took a year of hard work, a team of editors and advisors, and countless proposal drafts and revisions, along with a heavy dose of luck.

My guide through this process was The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (affiliate link), recommended to me by my agent as an industry standard. It is a monster 500-page book detailing everything (and I mean everything) you would ever want to know about landing a book publishing deal.

This series is a summarized collection of insights drawn from this book, other published sources, and my own experience. I’ll do my best to focus on the most interesting, unusual, counterintuitive, or important pieces of advice for writers interested in one day navigating the waters of the publishing world.

My hope is that it gives those of you who are just beginning your writing journey a better window into the process. That it helps you be more strategic about publishing your writing while avoiding common mistakes and pitfalls.

The 3 Paths to Publishing

There are essentially three paths you can take to publish your book:

Traditional publishing through the “Big 5” publishing houses (HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan)Independent presses that range in size from fairly large ones (like W.W. Norton), to smaller university presses, to one-person shopsSelf-publishing, such as on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform

There are many factors to consider when choosing which of these routes to take. There is no “correct” path for everyone, or for every book. 

The pathway you choose depends on your abilities, your preferences, and your goals. I’ve previously written about the pros and cons of each of them in The Four Pathways of Modern Book Publishing, explained why I chose traditional publishing to advance my own goals in The Case for Traditional Publishing for Full-Stack Freelancers, and laid out my publishing strategy in My 10-Step Book Publishing Strategy.

In this series, I’m going to focus on the first option – signing a book deal with a Big 5 publisher – and on the first all-important milestone in that journey – landing a publishing deal for your book.

We’ll start at the point where you have a book idea and are ready to start writing a proposal for it. Even if you’re not at that point yet, knowing what it will look like when you get there can help you decide whether you even want to try. 

I suggest you view this as a practical guide if you’re already an experienced writer, or as a window into a normally opaque industry if you’re not. My goal is simply to help you understand what it looks like and what it takes to succeed in the traditional publishing game.

Here are the topics we’ll cover in the rest of the series:

Evaluating your book ideaPublishing as campaigningCrafting the proposalAssembling the teamThe Ins and Outs of OffersTerms and conditionsWriting your bookLaunching your book Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

The post The Comprehensive Guide to Landing a Book Deal appeared first on Forte Labs.

The Lifecycle of a Profitable Online Course

I recently joined Chris Sparks to discuss the evolution of online education and identify the fastest path to creating profitable and sustainable online courses.

In case you didn’t know, I’ve created 5 successful online courses which have generated over two million dollars in sales. My flagship course, Building A Second Brain, has been taken by more than 2,000 students who have learned how to save their best ideas, organize their learning, and dramatically expand their creative output.

In this 90-minute presentation and interview we covered:

Critical lessons learned along the way to where Building A Second Brain is todayWhy most online courses fail and how to avoid those traps How to design, build, and market an online course that actually makes money

See below for the video recording and resources mentioned. For the audio version and full transcript, head over to Chris’ website at The Forcing Function.

Links and resources we mentioned during our conversation:

Building A Second Brain Course PageTiago’s Online Course Creation GuideThe Rise of the Full-Stack Freelancer, Part II: The StackLunch Hour #2 chat logTiago’s Presentation Slides Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

The post The Lifecycle of a Profitable Online Course appeared first on Forte Labs.

How To Work Effectively With A Personal Assistant, with Tim Francis

It is NOT easy OR cheap to “hire a VA.” But if done right, it is profoundly transformational not just for your daily workload but for your quality of life.

I recently hosted a comprehensive, two-hour online workshop with the founder of Great Assistant, Tim Francis.

Tim’s company is a three-part hydra: one part recruiting service, one part training program, and one part support system. It addresses not only finding the “right person,” but how you as a leader and manager can become the right person for them.

This workshop was a dive DEEP into the mindset required from both sides, the systems (both procedural and technological) needed to keep everything running smoothly, and some of the pitfalls and unexpected challenges that you may face along the way.

Normally I would create an entire course out of this material. But I’m too busy running my other courses! I’ve had such a great experience finding my assistant through Great Assistant that I wanted to share it with you.

Along with Tim and I, we were joined by my coach Billy and his assistant, Marian, so they can share their perspective after a much longer period of working together. And my assistant Betheny was on the call to share what it’s been like for her so far.

Here’s some of the material we covered:

Tim’s path to founding Great Assistant
360 Delegation, a powerful tool for clearly delegating tasks
The mindset shift of asking “Who?” instead of “What?”
Finding and training the right person
Misconceptions about virtual assistants
Tiago’s biggest lessons from past mistakes
Personal vs. Team knowledge management
How to create SOPs (standard operating procedures)

Watch the full 2-hour recording (plus 30 minute Q&A) below, plus a full chat transcript and a link to download the slides.

If you’re interested in finding your own great assistant, schedule a discovery call at this link: http://greatassistant.com/BuildASecondBrain (this is an affiliate link and I proudly receive a commission on any referrals).

If you have any questions, please email support@profitfactory.com.

Click here for the chat transcript and here for Tiago’s slides.

Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

 

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Interview on the Talk of Today Podcast with Sam Barton

I recently joined Sam Barton on his podcast Talk of Today.

We had a pretty wide-ranging discussion, covering where people go wrong when it comes to organizing their information, general thoughts about Twitter, the social platform responsible for this conversation, my life philosophy Servant Hedonism, a bit about trauma, and why I’m an arms-dealer for smart people.

Listen on Stitcher or on YouTube below:

Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

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Latinos Who Tech: How to Become a Digital Nomad with Lauren Valdez

My partner in business and life Lauren Valdez recently sat down to speak with Hugo Castellanos on his podcast Latinos Who Tech.

They talked about our path to becoming digital nomads and moving to Mexico City, how we navigate disagreements while running the business together, and her uniquely Latina take on productivity and building a Second Brain.

Listen to the interview below or visit the episode webpage for more details.

You can follow Lauren’s work and ideas by subscribing to her Substack newsletter.

Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

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I Got a Book Deal for Building a Second Brain!

I couldn’t be more proud to announce that I’ve signed a six-figure book deal with Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, to publish my book Building a Second Brain.

Subscribe below to get updates on my progress, sneak peeks at early chapters, and bonus resources to help you build your Second Brain now:

One morning in early December 2016, I sat down at a cafe in San Francisco with a burning question on my mind: “What would it look like to teach people how to take digital notes?”

That burning question slowly grew into an obsession, and then a business. 

The simple outline I made that morning soon became an online course called Building a Second Brain. In the course, I teach people how to build a system for saving, organizing, and putting to use the most valuable information in their lives. 

I call this system a “Second Brain” because it removes from our shoulders the burden of remembering. It allows us to outsource our memory, instead of trying to keep every detail of our work and lives in our heads. It is like having a brilliant collaborator, thought partner, and personal assistant always available, ready to serve up our best ideas at a moment’s notice.

That business has now grown into a community.

Second Brainers, as I like to call them, believe that technology doesn’t have to be only a distraction or a necessary evil. At its best, it can be used as a cognitive exoskeleton – amplifying our intellectual and creative potential far beyond what humans can do on their own. 

Seeing my students create their own Second Brain, and then using it to discover a new way of working, has been the single most profound shift I have ever witnessed in people’s ability to create the life they want. 

It allows them to do better, more creative, more original work. It enables them to manage all of life’s responsibilities with ease. It empowers them to run after their creative ambitions without sacrificing their health and peace of mind. 

When we outsource the mundane work of managing information to a Second Brain, we suddenly have the time and space to do the imagining and playing and creating that only humans are capable of.

The origin story

I began using software to manage information more than 10 years ago. 

It started when I came down with a debilitating, chronic health condition that appeared out of nowhere, with no explanation. Suddenly, I had to keep track of an overwhelming number of documents, insurance forms, test results, and doctor’s notes just to make it through my week.

I developed my Second Brain because I needed a way to manage all this information while also finishing my studies, advancing my career, and eventually, starting a business.

A few years into that business, I began to notice that my readers and customers also struggled to manage the flow of information they were exposed to each day. I was teaching people how to improve their productivity, but all the productivity tips in the world were pointless when they felt incredibly anxious, fearful, and hopeless about ever getting the flood under control. They wanted a way to do better, more creative work without exhausting themselves with heroic feats of self-discipline.

In the Building a Second Brain course I teach the antidote to the usual approach to self-improvement: how to optimize a system outside of yourself, so that you don’t have to be optimized. I teach the system of knowledge management that has helped me recover from my health problems and thrive. 

In just a few years, the “Second Brain” concept has gone from a bizarre oddity to a widely discussed trend. 

I constantly come across articles and interviews in which people reference their Second Brain and what it allows them to accomplish. Every week I hear incredible testimonials of people taking ownership of their creative process and taking on bigger challenges than they ever imagined possible.

The time has come to make our community into a movement. To bring the potential of “thinking tools” to those who have never encountered them before.

Creating a movement

I call it the “Second Brain movement.” It is inspired by a profound possibility – that we can use computers to think better. 

This possibility points to a future where people know exactly how to deploy their knowledge to design better products, make better content, and achieve their goals. Instead of stockpiling and hoarding information with no end in sight.

This is a future where information overload is a distant memory. Where we know how to make use of all the ideas, theories, facts, stories, frameworks, advice, wisdom, and resources available to us online, with total confidence that we can find what we need when we need it.

From the first group of 30 students in early 2017, we’ve grown to a most recent cohort of more than 800 students, all learning together simultaneously, from dozens of countries and time zones. We have a team of 22 people managing every aspect of this learning environment, all focused on ensuring that our students succeed.

In total, more than 2,000 engineers, designers, analysts, writers, project managers, executives, artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, students, and others have taken on the challenge of building a Second Brain of their own in our course. 

The live teaching format has been essential in allowing us to rapidly improve every part of the methodology. It has allowed us to see in real time which concepts and frameworks are making sense, and to try different ways of teaching them. With each group, we have gathered case studies, success stories, and examples from dozens of companies and industries about what it looks like to work with a Second Brain day to day.

Making a Second Brain available to everyone

Despite this success, it’s become clear that the number of people we can reach with online learning will always be limited.

As the world gets more uncertain and changes ever faster, getting world-class knowledge management skills into everyone’s hands has only gotten more important and more urgent.

We now work in a knowledge economy. The most important factors are no longer how many hours you work, how much effort you exert, or where you are located. What matters now is what you know, how well you document and organize that knowledge, and your ability to share it with others.

Technology is an essential part of modern work, but using it effectively requires a new skill – Personal Knowledge Management, known as PKM. Until now, PKM has been an obscure, academic field for the intellectual elite. But now, it is an essential survival skill for everyone navigating the modern world. It is the price of admission for anyone who wants to have their choice of career paths and have technology work in their favor, instead of being a threat.

This book will take Personal Knowledge Management into the mainstream of professional and business culture. Just as Getting Things Done introduced the idea of “personal productivity” as something that anyone can improve and benefit from, Building a Second Brain will open their eyes to the potential for knowledge management.

Why I’m working with a publisher

My top priority is that this book is available to the most disadvantaged and underprivileged people in the world. 

They have the most to gain from entering the knowledge economy, from making the switch from manual labor to getting paid for their thinking. I will do everything I can to make the book available in every country, in every language, and in every format possible. There will be an audiobook, hardcover and softcover versions, and of course, it will be available as an ebook on every online platform. 

Most of all, I will do everything I can to make the basic ideas as absolutely simple and actionable as possible.

The course will continue to improve, and we will start aligning the methodology across the book, the course, and free content on the blog as the publishing date nears. For anyone who reads the book and wants to dive deeper, we’ll have the Second Brain community ready and waiting for them. Eventually there will be a format and price point for anyone, anywhere, who wants to build a Second Brain.

I’ve chosen a traditional publishing deal because publishers provide credibility and authority still unmatched by the purely digital world. 

It will make this book more likely to be adopted by schools, libraries, bookstores, government agencies, non-profits, and companies – the places where most people learn how to organize and share their knowledge. Books are powerful drivers of speaking and consulting engagements, panels and roundtables, and interviews and appearances in the mainstream media – the places that people look to for guidance.

Working with a publisher, distribution partners, and retailers will give us access to a far larger and more diverse audience, which can only diversify the language we use and the number of communities we reach. Just working on the proposal has already improved how I write and teach, by forcing me to distill my message into its most simplest form. I expect that trend to continue as I write the manuscript.

The greatest strength of a book is its simplicity: it doesn’t require any special technology to read, doesn’t depend on WiFi or a device, and can be easily passed from person to person. Books are by far the most universal format for knowledge transfer ever invented. They can find their way into the nooks and crannies of society like no other form of communication.

I’m going to be sharing updates on every step of the journey, everything I’m learning about writing and publishing, sneak peeks at early chapters, and as always, free weekly posts on how to improve your own knowledge management.

Join below to receive those, and to be part of the community, the movement, and the future we are working toward. 

Thank you so much for being part of the journey so far. None of this would be possible without your support. This is only the very beginning.

Tiago

The post I Got a Book Deal for Building a Second Brain! appeared first on Forte Labs.

The New Forte Labs Website

I’m very pleased to officially present the new Forte Labs website!

Here’s what’s new:

New logo

I had designed my last logo in about 15 minutes using cheap software, and it wasn’t up to the task of representing the company any longer.

The WordPress developer created it as part of the site design, and I think it’s a huge improvement:

The two diagonal lines come from the crossbars on the F. Their upward slant represents the improvement, achievement, and optimism that our followers are seeking. The red color and the font are meant to signal the boldness and courage required to overturn established ways of doing things.

But the logo is also rounded and curved, representing self-awareness, personal growth, and sensitivity. We are not part of the “24/7 hustler culture” that tells people to sacrifice their wellbeing and peace of mind.

Website and blog integration

For the first time, my blog is part of my main website. Previously I had the blog on WordPress, and my homepage on Squarespace, which led to all sorts of confusion and reduced my SEO (search engine optimization) traffic.

I was always afraid that moving completely to a custom platform like WordPress meant that I wouldn’t be able to make changes myself. I was afraid I’d have to pay a developer by the hour just to publish a blog post. This has proven to be totally unfounded – we are using a page builder called Elementor that gives us the best of both worlds: customization and flexibility.

Now the last 3 published posts are previewed just below the fold on the homepage, and the full gallery view is a click away.

Top priority is email subscriptions

Previously I showcased my Building a Second Brain course front and center at the very top of the site, since that’s where I ultimately wanted people to end up.

But working with my business coach this year, I’ve realized that that is like asking for someone’s hand in marriage on the first date. No one buys a premium-priced course at first sight. They need to slowly establish a relationship with me and learn to trust me.

That’s why the top priority across every aspect of the new site is email subscriptions. I have a form at the top of the homepage, on the bottom of every other page, and at the bottom and middle of every blog post. Each one promises a “content upgrade” (like a small bribe) as an incentive to subscribe.

It’s not enough to just collect email addresses. After several years of sending out emails “whenever I felt like it,” I’ve committed to sending out one newsletter per week full of valuable free content. These efforts combined have led to an incredible growth in my subscriber base from about 6k in August to 15k today.

Subscriber growth from August 2019, when I moved from Mailchimp to ConvertKit, to today Introducing Forte Academy

Back in November I announced Forte Academy, our new name for the online school we’ve been slowly building over the nearly 8 years we’ve been in business.

We now offer 5 courses (plus two premium modules) on different aspects of personal productivity, including task management, habit formation, knowledge management, modern writing, and goal-setting.

It kind of happened on accident, with each new course growing out of the needs of the previous one, but layer by layer we are building a holistic curriculum for modern knowledge work. I created the Digital Productivity Pyramid to describe how each layer builds upon the one before. And our 8 pillars of education explain the principles that underlie our teaching philosophy.

Forte Academy now has its own page. For now this is a “soft launch,” but as we add new courses taught by new instructors I hope it will eventually grow into a platform for transformational education, where teachers with powerful knowledge to share can do so without having to figure out all the tech infrastructure and logistics.

My ultimate dream is that the best teachers, coaches, and experts in the world can just log on and serve the world’s students. And that they can make just as much or (far) more money while serving vastly more students at a fraction of the price it would normally cost.

New “Start Here” page

This is the part I’m most proud of. By far the biggest complaint from website visitors has been “I can’t tell what the heck you do!” All my explanations were either way too specific and technical, or way too vague and abstract. There were huge barriers of time and effort just for people to understand what I offer.

I knew this was the case, but felt powerless to change it. Totally immersed in my work 100% of the time, I lacked the perspective to see it from the outside. I worked with my developer and a couple dozen generous Twitter followers to craft a new Start Here page that, for the first time, I think does a decent job of introducing my ideas to newcomers.

I hope this becomes a resource that you feel comfortable sending to friends or colleagues, knowing that they’ll get a nice introduction without drowning in a firehose of content.

New ways of exploring Praxis

Another big pain point for visitors has been making sense of the Praxis blog. For about 6 years I’ve published posts on many different aspects of productivity, effectiveness, learning, knowledge management, etc.

But for this redesign I took a big step back and focused on organizing what’s already there. I revised the About Praxis page to explain what the blog is about, including a full list of topics with direct links to view them.

On the new Explore page, you can view all these topics grouped under 9 “learnings goals” like “Developing your self-awareness,” “Sharing your ideas,” “Doing your best work,” and of course, “Creating a system of knowledge management.” You can also see posts organized by series and type at the bottom.

In just over 2 years, Praxis has become a six-figure annual business with nearly 1k monthly subscribers. I hope this new design will help them find the most impactful strategies for any challenge they encounter, while setting the stage for the next phase of growth.

Feb. 2018–April 2020 on the Memberful platformForte Labs community

We’ve seen tremendous growth in our public communities on Facebook and Slack in the last year. I was hesitant about investing in them, because I didn’t want to spend more time on social media, and didn’t want messages and notifications to distract me from what matters.

But I’ve seen the tremendous value in having a semi-public forum for people to meet each other, discuss their problems and wins alike, and even collaborate on projects together.

The Building a Second Brain Facebook group has become a great way for people completely new to these ideas to dip their toes in the water. Nearly half the new members report that the group was recommended by Facebook. These are people I think I would have difficulty reaching otherwise.

The Forte Labs Slack has become like a network of workshops. People have created dozens of channels for various apps and topics and I am consistently shocked how active and helpful they are. Every time I see a thread it already has an answer.

So we’re doubling down on community and have made Join our Community an official page accessible from the main menu. We even have a Code of Conduct!

The next stage

This has become a general update on the state of the company and community, but I don’t mind. The feeling I have is that we are breaking out. Breaking out of obscurity, out of scarcity, out of adolescence, out of our narrow niche.

The events of the past few months have changed the environment in which we operate. Productivity tools and self-management skills were luxuries for the intellectual elite just months ago. Now they are essential survival skills. Maslow’s Hierarchy has been completely turned on its head.

That also means our role has changed. We are all called to be the leaders and trailblazers of this new environment. We have spent years exploring the frontier of modern work, of what it means to be a full citizen of the Internet, of how to make sense of the world and act effectively within it. That experience has prepared us to help others through the even more uncertain world we are entering.

If I had to predict what the next stage of Forte Labs was about, I would say that it’s about making the incredibly powerful knowledge we have available to everyone else. It’s about opening up, simplifying and streamlining our ideas into practical, easy to understand messages.

I have big news to share on that front very soon. But for now, thank you. Thank you for reading my blog posts, taking our courses, subscribing to these emails, and giving us the feedback that made this new online home possible.

If you wouldn’t mind sharing the website with anyone you think might benefit, I’d appreciate that too

The Building a Second Brain Podcast

After years of being a guest on other people’s podcasts, I finally pulled the trigger and made one of my own. Introducing the brand new Building a Second Brain Podcast, where I’ll talk about the main ideas from my course of the same name. 

I think people have enough long-form interviews, so I’m making my episodes short (under 10 minutes) and it’s just me talking! I’ve released season 1 all at once, with each episode covering one of the Top 10 Takeaways from my Second Brain methodology.

You can listen to the first episode below, or on Overcast, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. I’d really appreciate it if you gave me a review and shared it with anyone you think would like it! 

Here’s the official description:

Overwhelmed by consumption? The Building a Second Brain Podcast gives you the tools to thrive in the Information Age. Tiago Forte teaches you how to turn your notes, bookmarks and unread articles into completed creative works. Learn how to build your own “Second Brain” – a trusted place outside your head where you can collect your most important ideas and insights, and use them to do your best work. You’ll discover why many myths about the creative process hold us back, and how replacing them with a modern approach can unlock our true creative potential. You’ll be amazed at what you can create with the right frame of mind.

Tiago draws on years of experience teaching, speaking, and writing about productivity, learning, organizing and note-taking for our modern, connected era. His experience is supplemented with his research into the game-changing techniques and habits of the world’s top creative performers.   Subscribe below to receive free weekly emails with our best new content, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or become a Praxis member to receive instant access to our full collection of members-only posts.

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