Etem Ozdemirci

Founder at Tazekafa

BASB sharpened my grasp of the basic concepts of PKM and pushed me to shift my focus to express/create rather than hoard information. This will allow me to create/publish more. I feel super excited for what's to come.

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.

Michal Bartov

Lawyer, writer & productivity enthusiast

My Second Brain means I have less mental stress around finding important information, and ensures I have more creativity in the future.

Wess Daniels

University lecturer, administrator, and author

I cannot overstate how much BASB has helped me. I am an administrator and faculty member in higher-education and am constantly trying to manage multiple streams of input, while managing many projects, staffing, budgets, my own research and ideas, and more. Until I took this course, I was often literally holding my breath, hoping to remember all the moving parts, hoping to not show up and be too unprepared, and dreaming of the day when I would have more time to work on my own projects. Now, within the span of 6 weeks, I feel completely different not just about my projects and creative output but about all of my work. There is a clear delineation for me before and after I started this course. It is just what I needed. And just in time. The class has not only been a lifeline for me, it has been spiritually and emotionally rewarding. I don’t feel defeated or like I’m always playing catch-up. I know what I need to do and I have the tools and ideas to accomplish it well.

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.

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.

Karen Roldan

@karenroldanblog

I’m halfway done with @fortelabs’s BASB Foundation course and it was life-changing. 💫

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.

Terry Toh

Program Manager @Google, Life Coach @TalkToTerry.co

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

Celz Alejandro

Creatives Manager at UP Advertising Core Antipolo, Philippines

It's been a few months since BASB has ended but I'm still reaping the benefits of having this system. Having a Second Brain is so, so, SO important. Just the other day, I misread a deadline for some case studies, and it was already 9:30am!!!! But since I had a Second Brain, I was able to whip one up because I already had my testimonials, social proof, and screen shots all in one place. Funny enough, I was commended because my case study submission was apparently super clean and well thought-out. So this is what you meant when you said people will think you're some sort of "genius", when really you just know how to manage the stuff in your head.

Michael Rosidor

Personal Trainer, L.A. Fitness

This course has honestly transformed my life! I’ve always struggled with being organized and keep track of my many obligations and interest, but after taking the course and applying the material learned, I now find myself exciting to wake up in the morning to enjoy this new life this course has helped me put together.

Wendy Mak

Building a Second Brain gave me the confidence to kickstart things I've had in my mind but was never able to move forward. Originally, I was looking for a way to store things for systematic retrieval. After the course, not only did I learn a way to capture and express myself, I have also gained understanding about how my struggle in the learning process reflects how I approach things in life.

Dawn Williams

Management consultant

High-value knowledge work requires high-quality knowledge resources: abundant working knowledge capital, a reliable knowledge infrastructure, knowledge liquidity, and a differentiating knowledge value proposition, all coherently leveraged to provide a competitive advantage. Building a Second Brain has transformed my relationship to, and understanding of, personal knowledge capture and retention. The value to my business is significant; the value to me personally — immeasurable.

Filip Rankenberg

Body therapist and trainer, Co-founder and former director of ManuVision

The sensation of certainty – that I knew that whatever had peaked my interest, I could capture it so easily – and there was a well thought out framework where it ended up, just waiting to be used towards achieving my dreams – that sensation was a real feeling of having gotten smarter. This in turn gave a noticeable boost in self-confidence and energy towards working on my projects. It’s hard to understate the sense of growth of who I am – of what I’m capable of achieving. It has profoundly altered my outlook on life and what I dare to aspire to.

Eleasah Whittaker

The Second Brain is a living database. It is a method for storing and organizing information for reference and re-use…Instead of spending hours researching the same topic months from now, with the Second Brain, all of the information is only seconds away.

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.

Ryan F.

Financial analyst

There is nothing on the web that will arm you with the perspectives encompassed within Building a Second Brain. This course tackles the paradigms of note-taking as we know it and will completely shift your ability to leverage the digital world with creative force. With exposure to ideas such as manipulating traditional ‘flow’ states, how to become interruption-proof and getting a grip on your projects — the course is comprehensively transformative. Tiago assisted in fundamentally changing the way I operate and interact digitally. Personally, the biggest impact was the creation of a literal ‘second brain’ via techniques of capturing, applying multi-layered summarisation and re-packaging information into intermediate packets of work. These ideas have allowed me to triage my consumption into shareable and productive outputs. Coupled with an *extremely valuable community group*, you are free to experiment with ideas, share and implement techniques and get valuable feedback. Whether it’s a complete mindset shift, a new way to use tools, defining and re-organising your projects, seamlessly capturing information, the ability to use rather than simply consume, or allowing for spontaneous connections — Building a second brain creates a space in your digital life which turns chaos into a bespoke system and approach to the digital landscape which optimises for creativity.

Jenn Reid

BASB has already impacted my life in more ways than I could have imagined. Now, I feel like an authority and I am not worried about expressing myself. My biggest win was participating as a moderator and getting to learn more about the leading practices at Forte Labs. It has allowed me to witness the hard work and attention to detail that goes into creating an exceptional experience.

Yuri Burchenya

Co-founder at GetFoundXL

This course completely re-organized the way I consume content. It changed what I pay attention to and why.

Piyush Surana

Principal, Tomorrow Capital

I'm more confident in synthesising my learning and sharing my ideas. I want to emerge as a thought leader in my field. Building a Second Brain has allowed me to distill and express my thoughts in order to achieve my goals, and my Second Brain ensures I always have the building blocks ready to explore any idea. I used to read a lot, but now I know how to use my learning better.

Barjes R. Angulo

Financial Planner

Building a Second Brain is life-changing. I feel more organized. I know where everything goes. It's cleared up my information hoarding and replaced it with buckets for distilled work. One example of how it's helped me: I had a meeting with a team about an upcoming presentation. I discussed my thoughts, recorded them during the meeting, distilled the content, pushed it to my VA. She drafted a presentation that took 15 minutes to edit! BAM!

Wren Roberts

I feel like this is going to change everything. Moving forward, I can't wait to see where all this takes me!

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.

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.

Ting Chang

Front-end Engineer

I came into the course thinking that BASB would be teaching a cookie cutter method, one size for all. But it was a pleasant surprise how it focuses on building a system that works for you. I love how Tiago would bring in the high-level concepts/principles, and show his way of going about it. The mentors would also show their perspective, this really was gold. I absolutely loved BASB. The biggest impact is how it triggered a reflection on my existing systems and patterns, not just to notetaking, but on a broader perspective. BASB has been so much more than another PKM course.

Thomas Clark Durant

Writer, teacher, coach & paired leadership evangelist

I’ve really loved the course. It’s been a great accelerator for me. It made me feel more deeply connected to my purpose. And at a time when I really needed that. THANK YOU!

Stefan Hoffmann

Freelance Facilitator

PARA has both reduced the chaos in my mind and helped me with information overwhelm.

Carlo Minciacchi

Founder & Software Engineer

The programme teaches you actionable principles and habits on capturing, organising, synthesising and making use of knowledge. The biggest win for me was connecting the things I have to get done (deliverables, tasks) with the information needed to make these happen. As a result, I now have a system in place for moving the needle forwards on my projects with really effective ways of collecting and making use of knowledge that I capture (or create)! Before the programme I was half-heartedly implementing GTD and managing knowledge, leading to a lot of time spent trying to sort things out and never actually moving the projects forwards. With the new systems I set up during BASB I feel I can dig deeper in my projects and produce even better quality results, with less stress/effort.

Vicario Reinaldo

The Building a Second Brain course was life changing! I've been more mindful to capture, organize, distill, and express information. It helped me get aligned with my goal to balance information consumption with production.

Sheila Glesmann

Owner of Emission Strategies, Inc.

BASB has reduced my stress levels. I now feel less scattered and more directed.

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.

Mia Lang​

My second brain is one of the best resources I have because it gives me the freedom to easily consume information, organize it, and create a blog post…It taught me a fantastic way to simultaneously learn more, and archive information to be able to fully focus on one thing, all while keeping the information I have already collected readily available.

Jan-Philipp Hopf

Software engineer

Honestly, since I got a hang on it — I’ve had quite a few WTF?! cognition melting and folding moments — cognitive reboot…That clarity of delivery obscured the depth of possibilties, which became casual tools-to-play-with after I had crossed the chasm, but were confusion-inducing earlier. The remaining confusion is actually a more sensitive perception, a place of possibility and momentum.

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.

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.

Jay Colbert

Librarian

BASB has made my mind feel lighter. Now, my email doesn't scare me. My thoughts and ideas aren't just nebulous things I want to put out into the world but never get around to doing it. Now, I'm actually doing the things I said I would. I loved BASB so much after just one week, I upgraded my membership to premium because I wanted even more. The mentors inspired me so much that I want to be one too.

Nat Eliason

Founder of Growth Machine, podcaster, blogger

This is the best investment I’ve made in improving my personal output, productivity, and knowledge management. All of the materials taken together are phenomenal, and I’m really happy with what I’ve learned from the 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).

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.

Wan Muhammad Zulfikri Wan Yusoff

Computer science undergraduate student

I’ve tried various knowledge management systems but the ones taught in Building a Second Brain are the only ones that I’ll definitely stick with. It’s simple yet it’s the most effective at helping me generate value from my knowledge repertoire.

Cristina Varela

BASB has had a huge impact on my life. It has been one of the best decisions I've made in the last few years. The support of the course and the community will allow me to continue on a great path.

Mohammed Ali Vakil

GTD Certified Coach and Master Trainer

I absolutely LOVED the course. It’s changed the way I think. You have a gift of articulating thoughts & ideas…Your slides and visuals are amazing. The diagrams communicate the ideas and mental models at a totally different level. I’m a very visual person, and the visuals have been an invaluable aid in the learning. My biggest takeaways are the mental models that you shared. It’s changed the way I look at the world. It’s given me a completely different perspective on absorbing information, learning and creating. I now give more importance to information throughput and creating. My views on Deep Work have changed. I often got anxious on the seemingly infinite information out there. And I used to deal with it by shutting off sources of information. But with the mental model of stream thinking, I’m now less anxious about information overload. As long as I’m chasing what excites me and creating, the rest will fall in place.

Adam Zielinski

Software Engineer

BASB got me from 0 to a knowledge management system that makes me more effective by the day! As I learn new skills, write tutorials and blog posts, and record presentations, my second brain keeps that knowledge around long after my first brain forgets. This is almost an unfair advantage!

Noah Goldman

Consultant, coach and entrepreneur

BASB is the answer to information and project overwhelm. You aren’t here to ‘do tasks’ – you are here to create and accomplish. Most productivity systems are about better managing your to-do list which predictably lend themselves to expediting the easy over the important– i.e. send email over, write book. But at best, that only serves us to make us more and more efficient at lower value work, if we can even call it that. BASB is about making the information you consume your own so you can better do what only you can do: create. It’s something you might not even fully realize you want or should do until you see it. A true gamechanger. If I could put it more simply, BASB is NOT an ‘organization’ system, it’s a THINKING system.

David Lukas

Author and naturalist

I want to put in a huge thumbs up for Tiago Forte’s online course Building a Second Brain. On the surface it’s a course about the art of capturing, organizing, and retrieving digital notes — which is perfect for anyone (like myself) who makes their living researching and utilizing large amounts of information — but under the surface it’s a course that will change your life in many profound ways. Tiago’s class deeply changed my life in at least two ways: I now have a working system for keeping endless emails, overwhelming numbers of research notes, and confusing writing projects clearly organized and searchable; and for the first time in my life I have a clear understanding of what it means to be a “knowledge worker” and “content producer” in a rapidly changing world where those are powerful ways to make a living. Tiago is a formidable and highly respected thinker whose insights into productivity and creativity are having a huge impact. His class was generous, warm, and personal, and well worth every penny because he shares so much and is completely available for questions and insights that matter to you.

Aidan Helfant

BASB has changed everything for me.

Darren Scully

BASB has confirmed and consolidated my knowledge. It’s giving me a ‘honed’ approach. It’s made me more rigorous. It’s even given me a sense of intention and confidence. I think, above all, it’s going to make me more creative.

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.

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.