“Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte

I am a fan of notes, I take notes on paper and digital constantly, and I think I have a system that allows me to use them quite efficiently. I use some digital tools, such as Evernote and, more recently, Notion — they do not replace paper notes, but they certainly have enormous advantages, especially in collaborative work.

When I read a review of Tiago Forte’s book, Building a Second Brain, what struck me was that, apparently, unlike the hundreds of books on information management and productivity, the emphasis was more on the Mindset than on the Mindset. Toolset, and not to train the brain to function differently from its design, but to build a second, external brain that would serve as a personal information processing system and memory bank.

The book is very well structured, making it clear from the beginning that Tiago’s system is based on a process identified with the acronym CODE (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express) and an information structure identified with the acronym PARA ( Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives).

The book can be repetitive and sometimes not very specific for someone who handles the concepts of Personal Information Management, note taking, and productivity. Still, the reality is that the structure allows you to speed up or skip reading known sections and stop at new sections. This is a virtue that…