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

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.

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.

I was overwhelmed with the amount of information from a wide variety of sources (i.e., email, teams, social media, text messages). Building a Second Brain allows me to manage the information through organization and storage it so it's easy to access when needed.

Building a Second Brain has been a complete f**king gamechanger. It's given me actionability at the centre of my workflow. Now I can match my mood with my work. I've now got a solid foundation that I can build my entire life off of.

BASB has literally changed my life. Every time I take this course I get a new job, that's more specialized and better aligned with my goals and beliefs. As a Researcher, being able to build a Second Brain is invaluable. I'm now able to connect different data points and have everything in one place. I went from being a generalist UX designer to becoming a researcher, specialized in designing futures.

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.

Building a Second Brain has changed the way I think about my work. I've learned how to recover my time with better notes and develop an intuition of what truly interests me. Seeing my notes together in my Second Brain has allowed me to cluster my interests to produce and express my ideas more fluently.

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.

Building a Second Brain is like a fuel injection. I'm ready to create, design, and get things done!

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.

BASB gave me solutions for problems I didn't even know I was struggling with, but which were big frictions in my work. Having a Second Brain has freed me from brainfog. I have a precise view of my projects and an amazing system of not just „getting things done“ but „GTD with a happy brain!" I am happy to be part of this amazing community.

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.

I had a lot of AHA moments during the BASB course. It has had a huge impact on how I work and manage my life. Finally, I have more structure in all areas of my life. Thanks Tiago & Team.

After taking BASB, I'm less overwhelmed by information overload. I now know that nothing is too big to tackle.

Building a Second Brain gave me the tools to create a system that works for me. It has showed me the potential of using such a system with regards to creative output. It was a wonderful experience and I’ve not only made major changes to my life in terms of how and where I spend my time, but I’ve also been able to impact my clients in a greater way as well.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Having a Second Brain allows me to work and collaborate on multiple projects at a time.

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.

My Second Brain has been very impactful in relieving "cognitive drag". I'm already doing things with the knowledge I've been collecting. Even something like cooking Thanksgiving dinner has been easier. I had three different menus to prepare while dealing with a lower back injury. Because of my Second Brain, I laid on my floor while my family helped. Because it was so well organized and planned in my Second Brain it came together easily and incredibly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks to Building A Second Brain, I am now more confident to be able to handle big projects and remember and use everything that I have learned. I know where to store things. I have become curious about incoming information rather than dreading it.

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.

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

BASB has made me feel more confident with information and being in the environment. Now, I can take action to create tangible things to share.

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.

I found wonderful people with amazingly creative souls that inspire me to keep moving forward. Thank you!

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.

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.

BASB has given me practical tools that I can use in my professional and personal lives. Now, I feel I can move forward. Prior to the course - I was stuck.

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.

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.

Building a Second Brain has given me the tools to have less stress and anxiety. Having a system of finding things means I don't have to switch context and I'm now a producer more than a collector. My tasks now take 1/3 or 1/4 of the time and I'm able to have weekends, Friday mornings, and evenings free for my relationship, family and friends. I'm even enjoying my hobbies like cooking more!

For YEARS I had searched for an outlet, some way to store, collate, manage, keep track of all of my thoughts, ideas, tabs (!), work and personal notes, and it was all-consuming and overwhelming. BASB was truly a godsend and a life changer for me.

BASB opened up a whole new world of note-taking. I feel so much more productive and my brain physically feels better! It has changed my entire mindset around knowledge management.

I feel as though I have increased my IQ by 20 points. Of course this isn't true, but it feels this way because I am thinking so much more clearly and with so much more relaxation and concentration. I am no longer improvising my knowledge capture as much, making it all up as I go along. The consistent techniques make my PKM habits more effortless by getting them out of my way so I can focus and think about the actual information.

With a Second Brain, the chaos now lives in an external system. Which means my first brain is free of anxieties and is a much better place to be. My relationships with others (and myself) are better for it too.

@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.

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.

I rarely complete my personal projects and I really couldn't understand why until BASB. It clicked that as a recovering perfectionist, I had never risked failure. BASB has totally reframed "failing" for me and I'm now excited about it lol! The live sessions and Q&A were my favorite part. I loved when Tiago crowd-sourced answers from the chat. There was so many awesome suggestions!

Building a Second Brain has freed me up from needing to keep everything inside of my mind. It's made me think like a CEO and made me a better professional.

BASB was a form of therapy for me. It's encouraged me to make more & better notes, and lean into the realisation that my future self will thank my current self for doing so.