Tiago Forte | Exploring PARA: The Psychology, Evolution, and Future of Organized Thinking with Tiago Forte

Srini Rao

Tiago, welcome back to the unmistakable creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Tiago Forte

Thank you, Srini. Good to be here.

Srini Rao

 Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you have a second book up out the follow up to building a second brain called the para method, all of which we will get into. But I was trying to think back to what I haven't had asked you before, because this is your third time on the show. And I realizedI never asked you this, what was the very first job that you ever had and how did that end up impacting what you've done with your life?

Tiago Forte

Yes, yes. You know, I've never been, by the way, I've never been on a show three times. This is the very first.

Srini Rao

Well, anytime I have somebody back multiple times, it's because I have a lot of respect for the work they do and they've had a profound impact on my own thinking.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, same, same. I feel like this is coming back home because in some ways, this is how it all started. That first episode was maybe the first podcast episode that really went far and kind of opened doors for me. So thank you for that. Let's see. What was your question again?

Srini Rao

Yeah, of course.

Srini Rao

First job.

Tiago Forte

Yes, so it depends how you define job, but I would say the first thing that I got money for was in high school. I would drive around in my little beat up Honda Civic, mostly to my parents, friends houses or people from church, and I would fix their computers much as I had always done at home for my own parents. Charge them, I think like a hundred bucks for a few hours, you know, being there to fix their...

Srini Rao

Wow.

Tiago Forte

It's funny that I would always fix it the same way, which is I would just wipe their hard drive and reinstall Windows. That was my one solution.

Srini Rao

Well, you know, I know how to do that. The charger, you got paid 100 bucks for that.

Tiago Forte

Pretty good for high school, right?

Srini Rao

Yeah, that is damn good for high school and like very little work.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, I mean, it would take a while because computers were so slow. It might take two or three hours, but I would just start the process and play video games for most of the time.

Srini Rao

Wow, so basically your first job is getting paid a hundred bucks to play video games is what you're really telling us.

Tiago Forte

Basically, yes. Yeah, I think what I learned from that was, I mean, I learned so much. It was my first time dealing with customers, having to listen to them and kind of provide a solution. It was my first time having to explain computers because often I would, it's not just enough to do the job, you have to kind of tell them what the issue is and why you have to wipe their hard drive and reassure them that you would save their files and promise them of how much faster it would be, all these different kinds of things.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Tiago Forte

And I think I also learned how incredibly poorly most people, even well-educated people, worldly people, highly capable people with high-powered careers, who are the kind of person who lives in Orange County where I grew up is like that, how they just utterly don't understand the first thing about computers.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that really kind of sets us up perfectly to talk about the new book. But one thing that I wonder, as I was saying to you before, I felt like I really loved the first book, whereas you and I were just saying that this book really probably wasn't meant for me. It meant much more for the second-brain beginner. But talk to me about why this was sort of the natural follow-up to the previous one.

Tiago Forte

Yes, so there's a few reasons that I came out with the second book at all, and especially so soon, you know, it was about a year after the first one.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I noticed that too. I remember when it showed up. I was like, because I remember when you got the book deal, I thought, oh, this is going to be a little while and then I saw it on my doorstep. I was like, holy shit, that was fast.

Tiago Forte

It was six months from the first conversation with my publisher in February to the release in August. Like record speed. So there's a few reasons. I was just listening to the feedback and the reactions to the first book and I noticed a few kind of recurring patterns. One is some people said it was just too hard. It was too complex to understand. They couldn't wrap their heads around it. It was too many steps.

They didn't, they weren't tech savvy enough. They didn't have the time even to, to read the book and, and understand it. They just said it was, it was just too much. And so I thought, well, how can I make like a stepping stone? Like, how can I make the junior version, the starter kit, so to speak? Um, and that ended up being, instead of trying to distill down the entire book and summarize the entire book, the best way to do that ended up being just get to, to really just get one technique, which is para.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

which is how to organize notes and files, and then just explain in the absolute most simple, easy to understand language, how to implement that one technique.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, OK, so you actually open the book by saying, if your organizational system is complex as your life, then the demands of maintaining it will end up robbing you of the time and energy you need to live that life. But most of all, the ideal organizational system would be one that leads to directly tangible benefits in your career. It would dramatically accelerate you toward completing projects and achieving the goals that are most important to you. In other words, the ultimate system for organizing your life is one that is actionable.

And I think that just with the endless stream of different productivity and note-taking apps, that narrative is really left out of the conversation of what these things are for.

Tiago Forte

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Srini Rao

So yeah, I mean, talk to me about, you know, one sort of the psychology of Para and how Para has evolved since you first came up with the concept.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, you know, so to speak to your first observation, I've noticed this too. You know, this thing called second brains or PKM or tools for thought or whatever you wanna call it has become such a thing. You know, it's become a niche, it's become a trend, it's become almost like a lifestyle, which is amazing to me. Like when I started doing this stuff, I didn't know anyone else that even did it or knew about it. I was just this weird idiosyncratic thing that I did.

Now I know tons of people that do and it's sort of become a trend, which is great. I'm happy for that. And I played a part in it, but I think there's also a, there's also a pitfall and a danger there, which is it becomes sort of like a hobby, you know, it becomes like the equivalent of collecting coins or stamps or something, you know, something that is fun and enjoyable and you get pleasure out of, but that has really no productive, there's no, there's no goal that, that helps you reach. There's no, you know.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

beneficial impact on your life besides just the enjoyment. And I just, I mean, I'm happy for people that enjoy this stuff, but I think that's a tiny, tiny minority of people. Most people, the vast 99% of people are just trying to live their life, do their job, advance in their career, grow their business or whatever. They're not trying to go in there and spend an entire weekend, you know, fiddling with apps and linking things together and creating knowledge graphs and meticulously tagging things and all this.

other kind of BS busy work that these software programs create for us. They're just trying to be more efficient or more effective at what they're trying to accomplish. And to me, that's what Para does. It's so simple that literally I know third graders that use it. Yes, we did like a mini pilot for a third grade classroom, I think in like, I think Wisconsin or one of those states, that they're teaching Para to third graders. What?

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao

Wow, really?

Tiago Forte

What other organizing methodology can you say that about?

Srini Rao

You're going to expand on this because I want to understand how a third grader uses Para because that is probably by far the most interesting context. I heard you talk about Para. Talk to me about that. What exactly does a third grader use Para for?

Tiago Forte

Yeah, so it just can be boiled down even further from the four categories. So I don't think they're actually using, you know, projects, areas, resources, archives, I think they're focusing on projects and areas and I think they're just calling them, I forget the exact terminology, but it's basically like projects are like you, you do something such as an arts and crafts project, and then you clean it up. Right. There's like a setup and then there's an action you take and then you put it away.

Right? There's a beginning and an end, a stop and a start, which a kid can completely understand. They understand the need to take out your little crayons and popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners and then the need to put it away. But then there's areas which are like the duties of the classroom. Like they have duties. Like they fold the little placemats after lunch. They water the plants that they have in the classroom. They open the.

the blinds on the window in the morning and then close them in the afternoon. These are sort of like recurring responsibilities. You know, it's a very low level responsibility, but still they understand that idea that there's some things that don't begin and end that are basically continuous that you always have to do.

Srini Rao

So this is like a physical manifestation of para.

Tiago Forte

Totally. Yeah.

Srini Rao

That is such an interesting way of thinking, because I've never thought about Para outside of the context of a digital environment.

Tiago Forte

Oh yeah, these are some of my favorite metaphors, like cooking. You know, cooking. So archives would be like if you have a deep freeze, you know, freezer in your garage. You know, it's like preserved for the long term just as you left it, but it's completely out of sight, out of mind. Resources is the pantry, right? Things that are not super actionable right at this moment, but if you wanna be able to access.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Tiago Forte

flour or pasta or salt or sugar, whatever, there it is. Areas I liken to the things in the fridge that are, they'll last some time, but you're probably gonna, you're going to want to access them and work with them in the short to medium term, right? And then projects are what's on the stovetop. What's actually cooking, boiling, sauteing right now that are super alive and urgent and actionable right now.

Srini Rao

Well, you know, the thing that I also am curious about is how Para has evolved since you first developed it, especially with the role that AI is playing, because you and I were just talking about some of the weird things that I've been doing inside of Mem with this, literally simulating human roles and that kind of stuff. But talk to me about the progression and evolution of Para as a system as it relates to the evolution of technology and the progress that we have made.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's funny because para

In some ways you and I were sort of working in opposite directions, right? Like you from what you've said, it sounds like you're advancing the frontier You're out on the Wild West frontier discovering completely new ways of interacting with information, you know pioneering things innovating on things I am almost doing the opposite I'm going back like away from the frontier back to the big city back to the settlement You know back into town and asking people listen

There's amazing opportunities out there on the frontier. What is keeping you from exploring it? What is keeping you back here at home and not out there adventuring? And then trying to solve just the almost really basic, what we would call easy level or beginner level problems that people have. I am interested in the frontier, but the point of this book, Para, is really people who don't feel that they're part of the digital economy, don't feel tech savvy.

don't feel empowered by technology at all. In fact, they're often very scared of it, very intimidated by it. And I think the reason I'm passionate about that, by the way, is my time in the Peace Corps and my time in developing countries where I just, if you're in Ukraine or Colombia or Brazil, the places that I've lived and worked, if you don't know how to open a web browser, if you don't know what a file is, you don't know what a folder is, then all the riches and the abundance of the internet is of no use to you.

So I'm pretty passionate about kind of that first rung of the ladder.

Srini Rao

your own use of Para with the advances that we have seen with all our various note-taking apps now with AI being such a big part of all of this. How's the way that you personally have used the Para concept changed and evolved even since the first book came out?

Tiago Forte

Gosh, honestly, it hasn't changed that much for many years. That's kind of the value of it. It's kind of so simple and basic that it doesn't, it's not really subject to changing technology. What I will say is this, it's almost like para is not the best, it's definitely not the only way, it might not even be the best way of organizing information, but it's the minimum way. It's like the minimum viable level of organization.

So often what I'll do is I have Para, you know, on various platforms, Google Docs, Evernote, and my computer, my documents folder being the three primary ones. But then, so that's like the minimal level, but then if I have a kind of information that needs more sophistication, right? That needs, I need more powerful capabilities to work with that information, then I'll get it from its place within Para and I'll sort of like promote it. It's like I'll upgrade it into a tool

that is more powerful and that can be Google Sheets. If I need spreadsheet capabilities, it can be Notion. If I need databases and dashboards, it can be Airtable. If it needs to go into like our CRM for the company or it can be ClickUp if it needs to be, if it's like a project that we're collaborating on as a company. So I don't see as Para as like the, the alt, it's sort of like the source. It's like the, it's like the mine from which I mine the data but then the data can go different places depending on what I need.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, I think of Para as sort of the operating system of the second brain, regardless of what app you're using or what tool you're using. But the other thing that this makes me think of is the difference between frameworks and formulas. And I think that the natural tendency for people when they come across prescriptive advice in books like Building a Second Brain and the Para Method is, okay, I'm going to take this formulaic approach. And I think that when you see these things as frameworks, they become a lot more adaptable because your Para and my Para are wildly different.

guessing.

Tiago Forte

Oh yeah, totally, totally agree.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, so here's something that I, you know, one of my biggest sort of like, this is how, you know, mem has become so useful to me. This is where I want to talk to you about sort of the challenges of para because here's one thing that I found. You know, with mem, I have literally tens and thousands of notes and you made a distinction in one of your blog posts, which actually became a foundational principle.

by which I actually built my second Brain and Mem, where you made this distinction between hierarchies and networks. And what I came to, the insight that I came to, was that hierarchies do not scale very well, and that networks are infinitely scalable. So let me explain that in a bit more detail. And I want to kind of get your take on this. So what I found with Para was that if I had to organize 25,000 notes in a hierarchical structure, eventually it would fall apart.

If I were doing that with Dropbox folders, for example, after a certain number, it just becomes a mess to manage and you're back to the mess that you were trying to fix in the first place, which is you're spending more time organizing this information than using it, whereas in a network-based system, because everything is connected, everything is accessible, and you yourself say that your goals are much closer to being achieved when all the information you need to execute, your vision is right at hand in the book. So talk to me about this.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, this is a really cool principle. It was very eye-opening for me too. It actually comes, I think I cited in there, in that blog post a book called Glut. I forget the subtitle, but it was basically a history of information technology that I found so powerful. And he makes this distinction, I forget the author's name, but that there's kind of like these two basic structures that you see everywhere. Like you said, hierarchies and networks.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

And they coexist. They're actually complementary. They actually often work together. One structure or the other is better suited to certain environments. So in some environments, hierarchies are more effective, more powerful in other ones' networks. I think it's good to not... I think it's more helpful, it's more empowering to not think of one as better than the other inherently, but more like...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

They're tools better suited to different circumstances. I will say, and I think the author does say this, that we are definitely in an era, like this whole era of history is a network era, right? Like for centuries, I think about most of the 20th century, 19th century, 18th century, society was so hierarchical, the church, the military, school, everything was so hierarchical that now for this century, we're sort of...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

going to the other end of the spectrum, and now everything is a network, right? The internet is a network, our computers are a network together. Even the institutions of society are becoming a little more flat and egalitarian in some cases. But this is the funny thing. In a way, my work is a provocation because it says, wait a minute, you guys.

Networks are wonderful. Yes, they're good. Let's use them. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are still some uses for hierarchies. And that's kind of controversial in this day and age. But for your specific point, here's what I'll say is, I think for most people's second brain, which to me is not just one app, I really insist that your second brain has to encompass all the different digital tools you use.

I think for some of them, networks are more powerful. For others, you have to use hierarchies, right? Like the documents folder on your computer, you still need that. There's still some files that are just boring kind of dumb files you just have to keep. And I think, I mean, there's, there's really not a very good way of having a network on your computer file system. Right. You're just sort of left with the hierarchy. And I think para is the best way to do that. Now I think knowledge.

Srini Rao

Yeah, there really isn't.

Tiago Forte

And the way you're using it is definitely one of the most obvious use cases for networks. Right? Like ideas really specifically benefit from not being siloed, not being just in one place, being linked together, being tagged, being sort of part of these emergent structures that kind of arise. My only hesitation is it depends on the person. Some people just are not quite ready for that or they...

get overwhelmed by that. Just the mental model of what is a network, how to work with a network, how to make a network of ideas effective, I think is still a little bit on the frontier. It's still a little bit advanced for a lot of people.

Srini Rao

Well, I'll tell you that is not surprising to me at all because this is the biggest challenge I have with Maximizer Output students. Like I said, the paradox of even having a module titled how to organize information and mem is a bit bizarre because it's a self-organizing workspace and getting people to embrace that idea is often very difficult because the natural tendency when they get in is, I need to impose structure on this thing that's inherently structureless.

So I wrote this note titled nonlinear productivity for our users the other day. Like I have an insider's group on the course where I just share different things in Mem. And basically, what it was is if you think about it, the way that we have been taught to do damn near everything, and this is the reason why hierarchies I think have like sustained for so long, is that we've done everything linearly, right? From the time we're in kindergarten to...

high school to college, it's like, okay, we follow this linear path. But the thing is that is basically not suited for the ambiguous nature of creative work. And I'll give you an example. I was working on a blog post the other day. I had the outline and all this stuff. And I thought to myself, I'm like, wait a minute, why am I stuck on this one section I can't get past? I'm like, you know what? I have a network-based tool. I'm just going to go work on the section that I know I can work on. I'll come back to the other one later.

And that is, I think, the thing that networks give you is you yourself told me in our previous interview about this idea of following your creativity, wherever it wants to flow. And I think networks do a much better job of facilitating that than hierarchical tools.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, I think so. I think so. And that's clearly the direction we're moving. I mean, it's very obvious that network, I mean, folders are going to go away. In fact, there's already there's already did you see that article where college students like freshmen today already don't know what a folder is?

Srini Rao

So it's funny you say that because I had Dennis, the founder of MemHero as a guest, and he had mentioned that to me as well. And, you know, like I remember I right after Second Brain came out, I sent a book idea to our mutual agent Lisa titled The World Without Folders. And she was like, yeah, there's no way. But, you know, I and I told Cal Newport this. I said, you can't have a world without email until you have a world without folders.

Tiago Forte

Oh interesting, say more.

Srini Rao

Okay, so if you think about the basic premise of a world without email, it rests on the idea of the fact that you wanna get rid of what he calls the hyperactive hype mind workflow, which is this unstructured workflow that is basically dealing with intermittent messages across multiple platforms, right? And the only way around that is in a network, because everything is in one place, everybody can access everything from one place.

So for example, if you're managing a project in a network-based tool, you can quickly share information, you can quickly access information, you can easily, you know, have conversations about that information without ever leaving that tool as opposed to, yeah, and this is a metaphor that I think I'd mentioned to you before when I think about the way most people deal with projects, is it's like going to a different grocery store to buy the ingredients for every ingredient for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is just moronic. It's the height of impidity. But the thing is that the...

Tiago Forte

Yeah.

Srini Rao

I realized the root cause of all these issues with knowledge work, you know, knowledge work or productivity has nothing to do with distractions. It has nothing to do with time management. It all has to do with how we organize and access information. And so all the tools we've built up until now are band aids. They don't address the root cause, which is why I think network tools are, you know, taking off, but they create a shit ton of cognitive dissonance because it's so unfamiliar for people to think about, to be able to organize information.

Tiago Forte

Yeah.

Srini Rao

exactly the way their brain works is such a bizarre thing to most people.

Tiago Forte

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, going back to your example, like you, you found that the tool you use, the network-based tool is more powerful and all these other benefits, but think, think for a second about how many building blocks that you need as a foundation.

Srini Rao

Okay, so this is a really important point. Yeah.

Tiago Forte

Right, like think about, you know, you Srini specifically, you have something called self-confidence. You actually know what you're trying to achieve. You have taste, you know, and can discern which ideas are actually good ideas and which are bad. You have obviously a broad, you know, familiarity with technology. You're not intimidated by, you know, opening up a software program and learning it. It's like all these things that people like you and me can take for granted.

Srini Rao

Mm.

Tiago Forte

They're not only uncommon, they're even uncommon among tech workers, I've noticed. It's crazy. There's people in the middle of the tech industry that you just, I don't know if you've ever like looked over, if you look over the shoulder of the typical, even tech worker, how they use their computer, it's baffling. Like they don't know the first shortcut. They don't know things that just, you didn't even think someone could not know.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I think that, you know, to your point, like you made a really critical point here about the foundation because this is the biggest thing about a network that makes it so hard to understand the value is that it doesn't really work well until you hit a critical mass of knowledge inside of it. Uh, it's literally network effects applied to notes is what I've described it as. I said, look, you think about Facebook, right? Facebook would be useless if other people weren't on Facebook and you know, people say, oh, like, how can I connect my ideas? I'm like, well, you need other ideas to connect them to.

Tiago Forte

Hmm.

Srini Rao

So I came up with this idea called the three-stage knowledge generation cycle, which is basically critical massive knowledge, which is roughly 50 to 60 notes, but you know, uh, sufficient, which is like 500 and then abundance, which is like 5,000 plus. And I said, when you get to abundance inside of a network based tool, that's when you can create at the speed of thought.

Tiago Forte

Hmm, yeah, that's the power, but also the difficulty. Absolutely, because it's like, in effect, that's true broadly across these sort of information management tools, is there's typically a big upfront investment, right? To download the thing, learn it, change your habits and behaviors and workflows, start adding to it, organize that stuff, and then eventually, we promise you will get these benefits. That really doesn't, I mean, if you read books like Atomic Habits or just understand human psychology

Srini Rao

Exactly.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

That's just, there's a small number of people that can have the willpower and the self-discipline to wait for that, but most people can't. They need to be able to take an action and see a benefit like in minutes.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well.

Srini Rao

So that actually was one of the reasons on the most recent version of Maximizer Output, one of the things I did was I made 50 of my book notes available and I was like import these into mems so that people would actually start with something because I was like, yeah, I just thought, okay, you know what, because I realized I'm like, I'm working at an advantage that they don't have. I'm like, how do I give them some of that? And I was like, oh, this is simple. I'll just make my book notes from the most relevant books to this course available. So there's like 60 book notes that they get.

Tiago Forte

Nice. That's a fantastic idea.

Srini Rao

as part of the course that they can automatically import into Mem and start using Mem's AI to interact with those book notes.

Tiago Forte

That is, oh my gosh, MIM itself should do something like that.

Srini Rao

Well, I pointed this out to Dennis. I told him, I said, you don't actually have a product problem. I'm like, you have a behavior change problem, because you're trying to get people to understand how to deal with information in a way that is so unfamiliar to them that, like, this is what I call a utility paradox. It's kind of like Twitter. I don't remember if you remember the first time you ever used Twitter. I remember thinking, I was like, this is the dumbest thing ever. Like, I was like, this is so stupid.

Tiago Forte

I still think that.

Srini Rao

Well, yeah, I mean, like, Twitter has gone through its phases, looks like. But the thing is that I remember there was a period of time when Twitter was my favorite social network because I met lots of podcast guests on Twitter. I met my mentor, Greg Hartle, on Twitter. It took me basically was one of those things where I didn't understand why it was so useful until I had used it. Now, keep in mind, this is like pre Elon Musk owning Twitter and the shit show it's become today.

And for me, it's not that shit show, because I just go on there and look at the people I want to see and see if they're sharing anything interesting. Nowadays, I hardly spend any time on any social media. But I think that that, to me, was one of those things when I realized, in order to overcome this utility paradox, you have to use it. And to get people to understand that, I was like, OK, there's only one way to accelerate this. We need to give them information they can start with. So it was like 50 book notes to start.

Tiago Forte

I love it. Yeah. Yeah, in the future, gosh, I think tools are gonna have to, it's like, software makers are always very reluctant to actually like do much with content. You know, they wanna give you this just beautiful, clean, empty space. You know, you can do anything, but for most people, that's too much freedom. That's too much, that's too many options. They really need like a starter kit. They need...

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

The same way, you know, we give kids toys and blocks to kind of play with. We need that for information.

Srini Rao

Yeah. OK, so let's talk about two things. One, I want to spend a little bit of time hearing your own insights and opinions on the role that AI will play in the future of Para. Obviously, for me, it's been instrumental. I was telling you, I can do a lot of the things that are inside a second brain using the AI inside of Mem. I can create automatic outlines, that kind of stuff, in one click. But I want to hear your thoughts on that. What is that going to be like? And let's finish this up with one

very concrete example, you wrote a book in six months. Talk to me about how para played a role in writing the para method.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, totally. So a couple things. I noticed that I work with AI every day, mostly chat GPT, and so does the team. I've just been a mate. I've never seen a whole new category of tool get adopted so fast in my company. We depend on it so much. And so I'm sort of observing how we use it. And I noticed, OK, so with these tools,

Maybe not the case with Mem, because it's right there within the software. But with ChatGPT and the chat tools, you have to provide context. Right? Like the quality of the answer you get depends just as much on, you know, the context you provide, the guidelines, the examples, the, what tone of voice you want, like giving it an identity as it does on the intelligence of, you know, the underlying model. And so, and so what does that look like? Well, today that with things like ChatGPT, that looks like

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

getting a bunch of text and dropping it in a text prompt. It's copy and paste, basically. In a funny way, we're back to the origins. Such a simple tool of copy paste. And so what do I need? I need loose collections of text that are broken up into small chunks and loosely organized according to what I'm trying to achieve in order to use Chat GPT. Well, that's exactly what Paraprovides.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Well, that's why I want you to convert to MEM because it eliminates that. That's why I've been trying to get you over to the dark side. I'm like, hey, you know what? Although I saw you have a complimentary tweet about MEM, I was like, and I think they even shared that in their newsletter.

Tiago Forte

Nice. You know, this should be the YouTube video that we, I just did a video with Marie Pouline that was like a notion makeover, but I don't use them so we can't do a makeover. So ours should be like, you basically like, ooh, that's a good one. Let's do that. Let's totally do that, yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

I'll build your second brain from scratch. I'll rebuild your second brain from scratch. How about that? All right. Yeah, that sounds fun. Like that sounds like an interesting challenge. Like I'll need a bunch of information beforehand, but I think to your point, like, uh, the context matters so much. Like I ended up writing an entire chapter in the artificially intelligent creative about how to communicate with AI, because I realized it was like learning how to talk to AI is going to be a skill in and of itself.

Tiago Forte

Oh yeah.

Srini Rao

Because I had a cousin who's an electrical engineer. And he said, at the end of the day, 50% of this is still dependent on human input. And I remember talking to my friend, Matt, and he would get frustrated with the responses he was getting. I was like, you sound like a moron. What did you expect? And I said, the thing you've got to realize, it's basically like delegation of tasks. If you do a shitty job explaining how to complete the task, and the person who completes it does a shitty job, whose fault is it? It's yours. And that's the same thing that applies to communicating with AI.

Tiago Forte

Yep, totally.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, you know, I actually find a lot of lessons that I've had to learn about people management as I've built a team over the last couple of years also apply to AI.

Srini Rao

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, as I said, you know, I'm literally simulating human roles now at this point, like thinking, okay, yeah, I asked, because, you know, we had these album covers and I wanted to know if it would be possible. I was like, this cannot be this hard. It's literally just a sketch of a person with a cool background and some text. And I found a way to literally use a series and this was all with the help of chat GBT to convert a headshot into illustration, create a custom background and apply the text in 10 seconds. And I'm like, wait a minute.

This means we can get rid of a $400 a month service. Yeah.

Tiago Forte

I know, I have a similar example. We are launching our building a second brain self-paced course in Portuguese because I just launched my book in Portuguese down there in Brazil. And we were just about to, I mean, translate the entire, like make a transcript of the course, translate it to Portuguese with a professional translator, proofread it, get a studio, get all the cameras and mics and everything, rerecord, and then have to re-edit and re-

recreate the entire course from scratch. And then someone sent me this tool called HeyGen. It's just a video on X that I saw where it will not only dub your voice in a different language.

Srini Rao

Wait, oh wait, holy shit, seriously?

Tiago Forte

Dude, this is the first such tool that if I could just get the functionality that I'm seeing in the demo, I'd be happy. But get this.

Srini Rao

Wait, does it actually keep your tone of voice, like your voice?

Tiago Forte

Not only that, so it translates the language. I'll send you the video afterwards. It translates the language in your tone of voice. You only have to speak for like 30 seconds or a minute and it's got your voice and it's very accurate. But then it changes the movement of your lips to match the new language.

Srini Rao

Okay, my thought, the reason that I am so curious about this is because I have thought for the longest time, I'm like, one of the most underrated growth hacks that we potentially have access to is making unmistakable in other languages. And I was like, if we can translate into Hindi and Spanish, uh, and make it available and make it sound exactly like it does in the podcast, I'm like, that would basically open up half the fucking planet.

Tiago Forte

Oh dude, it's for every creator, this is the biggest, this is the lowest hanging fruit. I mean, just imagine, think about, you know, what percentage of the world speaks English? It's probably just like half or something, no more than that, I'd say. I don't actually know, but all those people, I mean, this gets back to my mission of like, think about if you're a person out there and you don't speak English, the internet is close to you practically.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Tiago Forte

What can you do with tech with online if you don't speak English? And we can unlock that door for them just using these AI tools.

Srini Rao

So what is it called? I'm going to have to download this right after we're done. Because I'm so, like, this is a moment, this is one of those last sort of things I've been waiting for. Because we've talked to our team at Acast for like, look, I'm Indian. We need to make this available in India.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, first let me send you the video. Well, I should do this later when we're not recording, but I'll send you the video demo. And then I actually just got in touch with their head of marketing, like not five minutes before getting on this call and emailed them.

Srini Rao

Okay. We'll make an introduction then, please.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, if I get a response, because it's unclear if it's released for the public yet. That's the only thing.

Srini Rao

Okay, well, like I said, make an intro. Because I have a pretty compelling use case. So let's finish up with one final thing because I know you gotta get going here. One thing that you said, I think, towards the end of the book, which I think was really telling, you said, knowledge has been commoditized and made universally accessible, first through search engines and now through increasingly advanced artificial intelligence, which means there's no advantage to knowing any particular piece of knowledge anymore. We're now entering the era of the wisdom work.

Tiago Forte

Totally.

Srini Rao

Sounds to me like that could be your next book. Literally, as I read that, I thought, the era of the wisdom worker, that's the next book. Like I said, because I've been thinking about, like another book on organizing information called The Networked Mind, which would be all about network thinking and how it's completely transforming all of this. But talk to me about this idea of the wisdom worker, what it means and what are the implications of it for...

Tiago Forte

That's what my agent said.

Srini Rao

the future of knowledge.

Tiago Forte

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I haven't fleshed out that idea to be honest. It kind of just suggested itself, but I think what I was hinting at is where I'm at currently, which is really that I find almost every problem that I'm working on and every kind of major challenge in my life and in my business, uh, is a personal growth problem, that personal development, like real, you know, deep.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Tiago Forte

personal growth is kind of the bottleneck to everything in my life. Uh, and I'm doing, and I've done so much for that, everything from, you know, meditation and going on meditation retreats to doing a ton of coaching work with a friend and mentor of mine, Joe Hudson, you might've heard me mention, um, that I've worked with a lot. Uh, in about a month, I'm going on my first ayahuasca retreat in Colorado, which is kind of part of that. I find that it's, it's funny, like with the team now, the team that does everything.

You know, we have, I have Monica, my COO, she handles the day-to-day business to the extent that many days I'm almost like, well, what am I for? What is my purpose here? And I find that one of the highest ROI things I can do is to just keep finding my blind spots, my baggage, my traumas, my, you know, just things in my psychology. Because the company and the team.

And my work in general is an extension of my own psychology. It just is. So I find when I unlock that in my own self, suddenly in the internal world, suddenly it gets unlocked in the external world.

Srini Rao

way, you want to know what the synopsis for the era of the wisdom worker is? Because I literally just typed it into mem while we were talking. I cut and paste that quote. The era of the wisdom worker is a compelling exploration of the shifting landscape of knowledge work and in the 21st century. As knowledge becomes commoditized and universally accessible through search engines and advanced artificial intelligence, the book argues that the advantage no longer lies in knowing any particular piece of knowledge. Instead the book posits that we're entering a new era, the era of the wisdom worker. In this era the true advantage lies in not what we know but in our

Tiago Forte

Tell me.

Srini Rao

ability to apply wisdom, the deep understanding and realization that comes from experience, introspection, and a broader comprehension of how different elements interconnect and influence each other. This book explores how this shift impacts various aspects of life and work from decision-making processes to leadership style, from personal growth to collective evolution. It offers insight into how we can navigate this new era, cultivate wisdom, and redefine success in the workplace and beyond.

Tiago Forte

Wait, did you write that or did the AI write it?

Srini Rao

No, I wrote that while we were talking, I just cause I wanted to when I read that I said this might be your next book. And you're like, I don't know what the synopsis is. So I was like, okay, let me give you an idea. Let's see what mem chat comes up with.

Tiago Forte

My gosh, but how did you did you get a transcript of what I was saying and then just pop it right in?

Srini Rao

No, I had the quote inside of Mem, so I just literally typed, hey, turn this into a synopsis for the book, The Error of the Wisdom Worker. Yeah, I will.

Tiago Forte

Oh my gosh, send that to me. I don't have to spend a month writing a proposal now.

Srini Rao

Well, I'll tell you what, man. Like I said, if I can convert you to Mem 1, the team at Mem will be very happy. But I'm pretty sure I can make a compelling case for why you should ditch Notion.

Tiago Forte

Well, I only use Notion for team stuff. So it's sort of like a very part-time use case, but dude, I would love for you to, to try that. I, you know, I did an analysis recently. Evernote is my fourth second brain platform that I've been on. Um, but my average, uh, is usually five to six years each. And I've been on Evernote for nine years. So it's a little bit long in the tooth and I'm sort of like open. I'm more open to switching than I had been in the past.

Srini Rao

What if I could, what if I told you I could basically bring all of that information perfectly organized, accessible, and usable at the AI within 10 minutes?

Tiago Forte

I want to see it. I want to see what it looks like.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I can do that for you. Like, literally, that's something I can do in 10 minutes because it's Evernote. It's super simple.

Tiago Forte

Perfect. This sounds like the, I think this would make such good video too. It's like a little bit dramatic. It's like, it's kind of like switching your brain from one body to another. Ha ha ha.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, I'll show you the trailer that I did for Maximizer Output. And I literally used Memz AI to come up with the like wording and all that. And I was like, I want you to make this feel like an Apple commercial. And then I was like, also give me every cut, every transition, every font that I need to use and tell me how to build in Canva and write it up. Like a moron was going to do this. And like, if you see it, it looks like something that took 10 days. It took like two hours.

Tiago Forte

Oh, send that to me. I'd love to see that.

Tiago Forte

Oh my gosh, send that to me, I wanna see it.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I will. Well, I know you gotta get going. I wanna be respectful of your time. So as always, I wanna finish with my final question. What do you think it is? It makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Tiago Forte

Gosh, I think it's just fully accepting your essential nature and then just unapologetically applying it or manifesting it in everything you do, surrendering to that essential nature.

Srini Rao

Beautiful. Well, where can people find out more about you, the new book, all your work, and everything else?

Tiago Forte

Yes, so the website is buildingasecondbrain.com. If you add a forward slash para, P-A-R-A, you'll find everything about the new book. You can also go to buildingasecondbrain.com for my first book, for the YouTube channel, blog, podcast, all the usual suspects. And I just encourage your listeners to, if there was anything they heard in this conversation, whether it was, you know, we talked about super advanced stuff, but also very basic stuff.

Um, I can pretty much promise you there's something in this for you. Just find, go after and pursue the thing that kind of caught your attention and, um, and see what these incredible, you know, software tools can do for you.

Srini Rao

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.