Your profession and pursuits require you to consume and understand more information than ever…
And it’s only going to get more demanding.
Building a Second Brain is the answer to information overload and overwhelm.
It will help you clear the mental clutter so you can start doing your best work with more clarity, purpose, and ease.
You’ll reduce stress and anxiety by knowing what to keep and what to ignore. Your best ideas will be preserved forever in a way you can easily find them again.
You’ll create a digital environment that promotes flow, clarity, and peace of mind so you can do your best work at any time.
You’ll be able to focus your time and energy on the things most meaningful to you, whether that’s your family, a new creative challenge, or your career or business growth.
Learn the fundamentals of the BASB methodology at your own pace.
Put what you learn into practice immediately using your notes app of choice.
Choose and properly set up the right notetaking app for your needs with our step-by-step checklist.
Ensure that you make the right strategic decisions about your Second Brain from the start.
Dive deeper into advanced use cases for digital notetaking and personal knowledge management.
AUTHOR & CREATOR OF BUILDING A SECOND BRAIN
I’ve spent more than 10 years researching and personally experimenting with a new way of organizing our digital lives and improving our productivity.
What started as a quest to deal with a chronic illness turned into a life-long mission to help you harness the full potential of your ideas and turn them into reality.
My work has been featured in
• Identify and overcome the most common limiting beliefs around productivity, thinking, and learning in the Information Age.
• Understand why your perspective is your most valuable resource nowadays and how you can actively develop it.
• Discover why you need to build a digital notetaking system even though you can “google” anything.
• Pick a notetaking app, the heart of your Second Brain, based on your unique notetaking style and preferences.
• Get started using your notetaking app right away with our guidance and without having to “master” every single feature.
• Feel confident in your decision about which tools to use so you can stop jumping from one “shiny object” to the next.
• Find out why digital notetaking is nothing like what you did in high school and how it can explode your productivity.
• Set up your digital capture system with clear criteria for what is worth saving in your Second Brain and what isn’t.
• Escape the “reactivity loop” and learn how to manage information overload – this will have a direct positive impact on your physical and mental health.
• Identify your personal priorities using the “12 Favorite Problems,” a simple exercise inspired by Nobel prize-winning scientist Richard Feynman.
• Switch your default approach from “heavy lifts” to "slow burns" to escape the rat race of trying to work harder and longer than everyone else.
• Organize your digital life in minutes with our PARA method – a favorite among Second Brainers.
• Set up your Second Brain as a dynamic system that evolves along with your needs and priorities.
• Discover the incredible power of an up-to-date Project List with guidance on how to create one for yourself.
• Create a digital working environment that enhances your creativity and helps you get into flow states faster.
• Design your notes in a way that makes them easily discoverable for your future self, saving you tons of time.
• Learn a technique called Progressive Summarization to make sure your biggest insights are always front and center.
• Train your intuition to decide what's important and what's not in the moment based on “resonance.”
• Turn your notes into "thinking tools" that allow you to access brain power you didn't even know you had.
• Turn raw material into knowledge assets – a valuable treasury of knowledge for a side project, career advancement, or new business.
• Use the concept of Intermediate Packets to completely transform your approach to productivity. Never start anything from scratch again.
• Become interruption-proof and get better and faster feedback than you ever thought possible.
• Take advantage of the compounding knowledge in your Second Brain to tackle projects of any size with ease.
• Move consciously from scarcity to a place of abundance, from obligation to service, and from mindless consumption to self-expression.
• Discover how Project Kickoff and Completion Checklists can help you reuse your best thinking and free up your mind for more interesting, fulfilling endeavors.
• Establish Weekly and Monthly Reviews as routine check-ins to keep your productivity, creativity, and peace of mind on track.
We want you to feel fully confident in your decision to join Building a Second Brain so you can focus on learning and taking action.
If you have any question whatsoever, email support@fortelabs.com for a private chat with our team.
Most large organizations, and many smaller ones, will reimburse tuition for professional development.
Click here to download a proposal template.
Our self-paced course to build your Second Brain on your own time.
Anyone who needs to consume a lot of information, understand it, and use it to produce a result in their jobs. Whether you’re in Tech, Finance, or Management— if your greatest asset is your knowledge, Building a Second Brain is for you.
As a YouTuber, blogger, podcaster, or someone who needs to give killer presentations at work, a Second Brain will help you capture and organize your ideas, so you always have rich material to pull from.
If you’re working on a thesis or want to make sure every ounce of your learning is captured and secure forever, Building a Second Brain will help you get the most out of your studies and stand out among your peers.
Having trouble managing all the information you need to run your business? Building a Second Brain will help you work on your business and in your business without dropping any balls.
Managing a household can be chaotic and draining. But when you leverage technology the right way and build a Second Brain to offload some of the burden, you can thrive, not just survive, at home.
You’re consuming a ton of useful information but struggle to put it into practice. Now you can save all the knowledge you’ve gained, find it when you need it, and take the necessary steps to improve your life.
Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Central Florida
Founder and Managing Director of Good and Prosper Ltd., Wicklow, Ireland
Visit our Wall of Love for more in-depth reviews of Building a Second Brain.
BASB Foundation is our self-guided option for those seeking an introduction to building their Second Brain. Here’s what’s included:
• 7 modules with succinct, polished instructional videos teaching the fundamentals of the BASB methodology
• Writing prompts and reflections to ensure you make the right strategic decisions about your Second Brain from the start
• Guided implementation steps to help you put what you learn into practice immediately
• A step-by-step checklist to choose & properly set up the right notetaking app for your needs
• A resource library of our best, most impactful content to dive deeper into digital notetaking and personal knowledge management
• And lifetime access to future updates of this course
The BASB Membership is our all-access pass which combines the momentum of live cohorts where you learn alongside a group of passionate peers with a thriving community to continuously support you on your journey to building the life you want.
The BASB Membership includes everything in BASB Foundation plus…
• 4 live cohorts per year to accelerate your progress in 3-week sprints
• 4 interactive live sessions per cohort with options for all time zones
• Private members-only learning community on Circle with some of the most dedicated Personal Knowledge Management practitioners in the world
• Personalized support from our Alumni Moderators to help you implement your Second Brain in your notetaking app of choice
• Weekly live events and monthly Q&As with Tiago to continuously support you on your journey and keep you updated on PKM developments
You’ll have access to BASB Foundation for as long as we’re offering this course, including future updates.
We’ve designed BASB Foundation to fit your schedule and pace.
While you can watch the video lessons in just a few hours, we highly recommend that you follow the action steps to put the BASB system into practice.
It will take some time and effort to implement, but ultimately, building and leveraging your Second Brain will save you countless hours.
Building a Second Brain is tool-agnostic, meaning our methodology will work in any software you prefer.
Students use Evernote, Notion, Apple Notes, OneNote, Craft, Roam Research, Obsidian, Bear, and Google Keep, among many other notetaking tools.
There are no official prerequisites to take Building a Second Brain. However, we do expect you to be reasonably comfortable with using a computer or smartphone.
We don’t offer refunds for the BASB Foundation course. All sales are final.
With that being said, we want you to feel fully confident in your decision to join Building a Second Brain.
If you have any question whatsoever, email support@fortelabs.com for a private chat with our team.
Didn’t see the answer to your question? Check our Help Center for more FAQs.
Our self-paced course to build your Second Brain on your own time.