Neil Thanedar

@NeilThanedar

@fortelabs That's why I loved taking both Building a Second Brain and Write of Passage. I now have 5,264 notes and 89 posts, and am organizing many of my best ideas into my first book! Took both classes in 2019! Thank you! I've met so many awesome people through my posts!

Doug von Kohorn

Startup co-founder

This course offers a highly adaptable method for building your own digital brain. What? Yes. How? PARA + constraints. Why? Tiago offers a loose set of standards which you can start extracting long term, compounding interest on all of your work. I’ve never explicitly valued my attention, but I found myself regretting how much I’ve forgotten about the 100s of articles I read monthly — 100s of hours of attention, wasted! At work, I couldn’t easily find materials for my current projects — much less my previous projects. My attention was scattered. Tiago’s system strikes isn’t complicated or strict, which allows you to grow your very own personalized digital cortex. Now I can match my work to my mood and add value to my projects no matter what the week throws at me. In the two months since starting, I’ve produced three blogposts, planned three backpacking trips, decluttered my room, created an enterprise workshop, and got admitted into a developer conference. All using the *SAME* system! I’m living the PARA lifestyle now, and I’m never going back. This way lies not just productivity, but happiness and ease of mind. I started with no experience with GTD. I didn’t understand constraints. I never used a notetaking tool. I used my inbox as my todo list (starred messages). In other words, a total productivity degenerate. Take this course to start to feel agency in the world of infinite information and filter failure!

JC Cangilla

Director Business Development in Big Tech

After this BASB cohort, I picked up some new habits. I was able to launch a newsletter and a blog that I have been trying to get off the ground for over a year. I love BASB.

Christine Walther Tripp

Non-profit executive director

‘Building a Second Brain’ was just the class I was looking for to help me take my work in education philanthropy to the next level. Not only did I learn how to build a system to organize my sources and notes, but I also learned a technique to process this information to keep it alive. Now I know how to add value by growing the resources I collect into actionable ideas to take back out into the field.

Yaw Owusu-Ansah

WordPress Developer

After taking BASB, I feel 1000X more productive and have a system that gets a lot done for me. I think it is the foundation of a lot of growth for me and I'm excited about it.

Sang Hyo Lee

Industrial engineer

Tiago’s course is helping me to recalibrate my personal and professional documentation and note-taking system to focus on the important parts of my digital files to obtain insights and rapid retrieval of existing knowledge. Unloading artifacts of knowledge into a uniform system throughout all my tools and documentation structure is helping me to focus on my most value-adding actions in life, and still be confident to obtain further insights.

Charles Dicks

Transportation startup co-founder

Tiago has been at the forefront of discovering, and sharing, better ways of interacting with work and life for awhile now. As a participant in his BASB course, I finally learned the practical steps needed to implement his discoveries into my own workflow. The results have been profound, and immediate.

Elaine Warren

Entrepreneur & Content Creator

BASB has opened up my mind to new possibilities. The pearls of wisdom that Tiago sprinkled throughout the course --not directly related to notes or productivity -- were golden.

Tamisha O'Neal

Board-certified Cosmetologist specializing in curls

After BASB, my thoughts are clearer and my writing has improved. It's already allowed me to create things I never would have considered before this course.

Raphael Cox

BASB has already impacted my life. I am not shy in front of others as I was before. I'm eternally grateful for the course, Tiago, support staff, and mentors for helping me find my direction, my port of call. BASB has been 100% worth the investment (money, time, and attention).

Maika Endo

Entrepreneur Coach

BASB answers to our evolutionary need to rethink our way to exist online, how we consume and create with more intention and clarity. The course was thought-provoking, and I was impressed by the quality of the content (amazing production indeed!), the way it was structured, the solid teamwork, the curriculum- it really set a new standard in the online education space and as a course creator, inspired and humbled me. This is just the beginning but now I look at the future of digital era with more hope and trust, and from a place of empowerment. I know that I now have the tools and frameworks to turn the digital chaos into calm.

Dr. David Zovak

Career Coach, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

BASB has given me a more "action oriented" approach to my knowledge management. This will help me both produce and gather information more selectively. I also appreciated the scholarship that you made available as it meant I could afford the course as part of my professional development budget.

Hunter Schwinn

Student

Being able to catch ideas as they come to you is one of the most important things you could perfect…I will be building my second brain every single day for the rest of my career. This is not a static database but is rather a living, breathing system of information and knowledge management.

Ken Rice

Because of Building A Second Brain, my repetitive tasks are easier and I'm able to focus on cooler stuff at work. I'm able to make connections, collaborate with others, and more easily capture their insights. It's made me more geared towards action and expression.

KimSia Sim

Business Development Director

It’s easy to fall into the thinking that what Tiago teaches is merely knowledge and concepts. That will be a headfake. Through the knowledge and concepts he provides in both courses, Tiago is also indirectly showing you his philosophy of being an executive or an entrepreneur in this new millennia. It is this philosophy presented as note-taking productivity advice that is truly going to be pivotal for the average executives and entrepreneurs given the upcoming upheavals of massive information and automated workflows. The saying, “Ideas are cheap. execution is everything” by now is a cliche. While the bottleneck to creative output is no longer the supply of ideas, the bottleneck is not execution either. More precisely, it’s the clarity of thought that has become today’s executives and entrepreneurs bottleneck. Without clarity, you will get mired in bad execution. Tiago is training us to be warriors not of facts or activity, but warriors of clarity. Through clarity, comes productivity.

Chris Sparks

Productivity coach

Tiago has completely shifted the way I think about learning in a digital world. After taking the class, I have a reliable system to actually retain, organize, and use the best of what I read rather than just relying on memory alone. Former “needle in a haystack” tasks like topic research and tracking down citations now feel like child’s play. The community is well-curated with thoughtful discussions from a wide variety of professional experience — I learned almost as much from the other participants in the class. Have taken quite a few online courses and Building a Second Brain stands up to any that I’ve done in terms of value delivered per dollar and hour spent.

Dr David Barr

Economist

BASB has encouraged me to create material in areas that I would previously have approached passively as a consumer (e.g. writing a review about Hamlet instead of just reading the play). BASB was an enriching experience. It provides a framework in which 'write about what you read/watch/hear/see' becomes operational and integrated with life more widely.

Tien Pham

Consulting Psychologist

BASB was a transformative experience for me. It is totally game-changing. I believe that my professional life as well as personal life will be tremendously fulfilling in the future, thanks to BASB.

Joan Jaeckel

Social Entrepreneur, How We Will, Co-Founder, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

From my heart… now, with the BASB framework as a foundation, I approach my day with a playing mindset rather than my former dreading the coming slog mindset, I take joy in the constant rain of ideas. They sprout rather than wither because they have a place where they can wait and even grow until I need them. AND I can find them! Tiago has provided us a physical process that doesn’t suck the life out of our imaginative trips. Obvious as it may seem, for disorganized dreaming scheming ME, the ‘news’ of distinguishing WITH SPECIFICITY between a PROJECT and an IDEA was WORLD grounding, freeing, and FUN.

Bobby Rizal

Music & Web3

BASB has improved my consumption system in a way that I've never imagined possible. I'm very grateful for this knowledge, Tiago and the team.

Eralp Sendan

BASB has given me one of the best skills in my life and that is a living system that I can control. I am not overwhelmed anymore and I'm now more organised.

Pat Iniguez

BASB has made a tremendous difference to my life. I switched from a passive consumer of information without purpose to consuming information more selectively and with purpose.

Matthew Lecki

General Manager

Building a Second Brain is helping me create mental clarity and focus in a cluttered digital environment. Practically speaking, it's helping me prepare to start a business and train for a new career.

Danielle Bellows

Assistant Professor & Board Certified Pediatric Clinical Specialist

I feel much less overwhelmed than when I started Building a Second Brain. I believe I will be much more productive with my scientific writing in particular this year as a result of taking it.

Rodney Daut

The Course Builder Coach

Building a Second Brain taught me how to translate knowledge and insights into action. It showed me how to sift through a lot of stuff to get to the gold. And it showed me how to make starting points that can actually grow into a full project. It will save me hours of time spent on researching and reading that went nowhere.

Mindi Rosser

Social Selling Strategist & LinkedIn Coach

The Building a Second Brain course helped me accomplish many things, including how to start new projects, organize information, and manage complex creative projects. Organizing is no longer overwhelming, I have more space in my calendar and brain, and the projects I'm excited about are now "both and" instead of "either or". I can now fully trust my personal knowledge management system.

Jayme Dowall

Because of the Building A Second Brain Course, I’m less anxious and have tools to manage my relationship with information.

Jimmy Conway

Organizational improvement consultant

Imagine being able to recall all the really interesting things you’ve ever read, seen and done. How good would that be? Any problem, any piece of creative work boosted with a library of relevant material right there at your fingertips. That’s powerful. Well, this course helps you do just that. It’s fast-paced, expertly taught and full of examples, exercises and discussion that help you organise all the really interesting, useful stuff in your life into a system that allows easy access. I wish I had done it years ago.

Somangshu Goswami

Engineering Leadership

BASB has made me feel more organised. I wish I was doing this all my life.

Timothy Brathwaite

PhD, Data Scientist

BASB has gave me an organizational framework that is flexible enough to contain all areas of my life, through the different seasons of my life. It has helped relieve my anxiety to know I have a way to externalize all my knowledge, worries, and concerns. Knowing I have a way to edit and organize my thoughts digitally combats any disorganization and disorder I feel.

Kumar Ramasamy

BASB mentor sessions had the biggest impact on me. They allowed me to see the diversity of perceptions from people with different life experiences.

Kiva Slade

Analytics and Operations Consultant

As a long-term collector of information that often sat unread and unused, BASB has changed my approach to information and the possibilities are just beginning to unfold. This was life-changing.

Carlos Solis

Tech Evangelist & Author

The Building a Second Brain course was a game-changer. In the past, all I did was collect and lose information. Now I have a system! Data is not isolated anymore and everything connects. I can feel how my creativity flows freely and my delivery is not only faster, my content is more complex.

J.A. Smith

Musician, Web Design, Curiosity Specialist

BASB has greatly impacted my life and given me new found hope that I can take years of frustration around productivity and creativity and turn it into the joy of completion and expression. I am deeply grateful to Tiago, his team and the mentors for providing so much air that we can use to lift ourselves on our own.

Paul Solt

Mobile app developer

Tiago’s course provides profound insight into managing your thoughts using a system. Prior to this course, my system was undefined, but after taking the course I am confident I have the tools to enable me to think bigger, organize my thoughts, and achieve more.

Terry Toh

Program Manager @Google, Life Coach @TalkToTerry.co

Now, I can't live without my Second Brain.

Jose-Elias Alvarez

CEO at Inspirit

I have to say this has been an amazing immersion and experience. BASB is very dense but worth 10X the investment. Without a doubt. After so many years of GTD practice and intense productivity management, I thought I was a “productivity ninja.” Well, BASB has questioned and challenged all my stuff on productivity and it’s taking it to a next level. PARA is game changing and it’s adding massive clarity and order to my stuff across all the platforms I use. Key differentiators of this program versus others out there that I think provide a competitive advantage, include: the merging of deep philosophical concepts with the pragmatism of the program; incorporation of randomness and serendipity to the process — for example, via random notes; and the merging of divergence and convergence.

Lucian Condrea

Software Developer

Building a Second Brain has allowed me to have more clarity of thinking, more discernment about what I want to use my time for, and helped me acquire powerful tools to harness my productivity and creativity so that I can transcend them and simply live a joyful life.

Laurie Anderson

Alexander Art, CEO

BASB has given me a sense of peace and comfort to know it's easy to find things without remembering where I put them. I plan to attend future cohorts to keep learning and applying what I know.

Mark McGraw

Sandler Training

This was my 2nd time through the program and I am again blown away! The principles Tiago shares are really life-changing and priceless for peace of mind and creative expression. I am such a fan and highly recommend the BASB program to anyone searching to have for organization and clarity.

Felipe Fraga

BASB transformed the way I organize my information and look at my workflows. It opened up my perspective to new ways of doing things. Especially regarding creating and expressing, and how it's important to have the outcome in mind while going through all subsequent steps.

Paula Cuello

Educator

Tiago was great at reminding us that the way we approach BASB is how we approach many other things in our lives. If we want things to be perfect, and put things off generally, that is how we will approach BASB. It gave me the push I needed to get out of my comfort zone and just jump in. This will help not just with BASB but other aspects of my life.

John Barros

Content Specialist at Encore Global

The BASB community and the Forte Labs team are amazing. They've inspired me to take on challenges I've never thought were possible. You've done it again Forte Labs team! This is the best cohort yet! Thank you for all your passion and hard work to make this a wonderful experience.

Pranav Mutatkar

Healthcare Technology Consultant, Millman

Tiago’s class Building a Second Brain solved many problems that I had been encountering over and over again in my productivity workflow. And it also solved many problems I was not aware of. It has allowed me to create a system that will work easily so that I can spend time on what’s important: creation.

Ryan Deiss

@ryandeiss

@gregoryjhickman @fortelabs All joking aside, if @fortelabs lets you give him money, you should do it. BASB totally changed how I store and access knowledge and I can’t even begin to calculate what that’s been worth to me.

Dennis Nehrenheim

Software Engineer & Blogger

The BASB course has made me more confident in handling what life throws at me and being more effective in expressing myself. It will continue to be part of my overall productivity kaizen.

Hansjoerg Schaechtelin

Teacher

Now that I have a Second Brain, I have a trusted system to deal with information. It's changed my ability to go from just consuming information, to actually making something out of it.

Dávid Lévai

Indie Developer & Content Creator

I started this course to achieve 2 things. One, somehow collect all the stuff I consume daily to an easily accessible place. Two, use these to produce new content. I love how easily can I make new content using progressive summarization. Feel less overwhelmed and ready to be consistent with creating content.

Danbee Kim

Creative Director, OORI Studio

BASB is the best online course I've taken so far. It's helping me sort through all my mental, emotional, spiritual blockages.

Sean Kearney

Founder, UpGaged LLC

I got much more than my money's worth before I even started the Building a Second Brain course. One of the biggest benefits I've received has been about connecting with so many amazing, super smart people from around the world including the mentors and peers. The Circle is easily one of the best resources for tapping into high-quality peer-created and curated content that I will continue to use for years to come.