Tiago Forte is one of the most prominent names of all time in the field of teaching personal knowledge management (the image at the top of this piece is courtesy of his website fortelabs.com).
Most of the foundational skills I learned to build up my own methods of managing knowledge came from Tiago.
So I’m going to dedicate this piece to him and go through all these ideas that I’ve learned…
Where did I first come across Tiago?
To my memory, this was thanks to Ali Abdaal.
I’d been subscribed to Ali’s YouTube (the same way many are and have been) and I came across a conversation Ali recorded with Tiago about his upcoming book, Building a Second Brain (BASB).
Through watching I learned that Ali himself had taken part in a BASB cohort of Tiago’s and I decided that if Ali had learned a lot from the principles, it was more than good enough for me.
After its launch, BASB went on to become one of the go-to books for information about managing knowledge very quickly. It’s mentioned in the same bracket as How to Take Smart Notes and Digital Zettelkasten now, even such a short time after publishing.
The book deserves it though, teaching me more about managing my own knowledge than any other resource I’ve found…
What have I learned from Tiago?
In my own personal knowledge management system I’ve used much of Tiago’s organisation framework called the PARA Method.
Although I liked the Zettelkasten for what it was, I needed something much more robust for managing information related to getting work done rather than simply wrangling ideas.
Eventually, I came up with a method for fusing them both called PARAZETTEL. The PARA Method still is the primary driver of how I work with my knowledge within this system, just with a few tweaks.
My insight into this method also improved when Tiago released his second book ‘The PARA Method’. It hammered home to me how the tool used for work is only relevant up to a point — more important is having a good mental framework and practices for working with information.
You can use the same system for managing knowledge across your entire domain.
The PARA Method, at least in the capacity that I use it, powers everywhere I manage knowledge now from my file system on my MacBook to my various cloud storage and even my email inboxes.
Systems shouldn’t be high-maintenance
I think that this was one of the most important lessons I learned through Tiago.
Having one system that works across the board significantly reduces the amount you’re having to think about organisation. It leaves you free to be creative and dynamic, building and sharing your best work.
Productivity, after all, shouldn’t be something that you dedicate your energy and focus to maintaining, at least after a very low level.
It should be something that your systems manage in the background, making everything else easy. Your system should be a means to building forward and upward, not something you have to maintain as a form of work.
It’s important to have your goals and guidelines set out too for what you want to achieve. If you finally start using a good system for your work you might find that you have nothing to do as your productivity and organisation system has been masquerading as useful work.
Once you’ve got past the hump of difficulty that comes with getting the ball rolling with something new though, progress will come quickly. This is what I noticed when I started writing on the internet anyway…
How Tiago runs his business
As I share my content and products in a somewhat similar way to Tiago, I like to analyse how he runs his business to take advice on how I should run mine.
There’s a lot to learn about how Tiago’s written books, managed social media and been at the front of a hugely popular cohort he’s been for years. The Second Brain Summit is something he’s making happen at the moment too, being the first in-person event of its kind after being hosted online in the past.
Forte Labs is also a great site to go to if you want to learn more about what Tiago teaches. I’ll shout out his stuff here heavily because he’s inspired a lot of what I’ve built and shared here on the internet after all.
I can’t thank Tiago enough for the work he does, it’s changed how I think about managing my knowledge and has provided me with insight into a niche where I can help people myself.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to learn more about my personal fusion of Tiago’s PARA Method and Zettelkasten in a single system, you can sign up for the email introduction that I offer for free at this page below…
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