Resource and Knowledge Management w/ Tiago Forte – ABR023

Tiago Forte is a wealth of knowledge. He draws on his background in design and technology to help knowledge workers apply design thinking to day-to-day productivity challenges. In this episode, Tiago and I discuss the PARA method to organizing your reference material.

In this episode we cover:

 What Evernote is and why to use it instead of other note-taking apps.

Evernote is a database
Evernote has been around long enough to have strong, foundational capabilities.

PARA File Organization Structure

Projects - Any and all those things that need to get done within the next few weeks or months that require more than one action step to complete.
Areas - Ongoing aspects of your life that you are committed to meeting performance standards of.
Resources - Ongoing interests
Archives - Any other category that is no longer active

Progressive Summarization

5% of your notes are more valuable than the rest
Wander and explore
Every time you touch a note, improve it and make it slightly more discoverable for your future self

Summarize it - emphasize the most important, relevant information
Summarize the summarizations

You can scale the amount of attention that you pay- according to how relevant the source is to your projects

Quotables:

"When you have everything at your fingertips- you can start to see connections between things that would not be apparent if your information was stuck in files. "
"Evernote is one of the more personal apps…..It’s your own thinking, your own ideas, your own brainstorms, your musings, your journal entries, your work in progress. All the messiness you don’t necessarily show the world, you keep in an app like this."

"Define projects much smaller than you are used to”

“Once each little piece has its own value, you can put them together in different structures.”

“In one glance, at the 5th or 6th level of summarization, you can get the gist of en entire book in one instance.”

"Using a system in every place that you have files eliminates the cognitive burden of switching from one organizing scheme to another."

Links and resources mention:

Article on PARA method
TextExpander and Writing Automation with Greg Scown
TextExpander
Sexy Evernote Settings with Stacy Harmon
Radical Productivity - Evernote PowerUsers Course by Stacy Harmon
James Clear - Book Summaries
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse
Things
Zack's Kanban training

Connect with Tiago:

fortelabs.co
Twitter
LinkedIn
Clarity FM
buildingasecondbrain.com

Free Training Next Week!
This short Kanban training (25 mins) was created to show you how to get more control over your work and all the demands on your time. The control comes from Kanban’s unique ability to make your work visible.

The free training streams live at two times this Friday, July 14.

See Recorded Training + Enroll In a Free Kanban Course Here.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure.

The shownotes can be found at zacharysexton.com/23

Tiago Forte is a wealth of knowledge. He draws on his background in design and technology to help knowledge workers apply design thinking to day-to-day productivity challenges. In this episode, Tiago and I discuss the PARA method to organizing your reference material.

 What Evernote is and why to use it instead of other note-taking apps.

Evernote is a database
Evernote has been around long enough to have strong, foundational capabilities.

PARA File Organization Structure

Projects – Any and all those things that need to get done within the next few weeks or months that require more than one action step to complete.
Areas – Ongoing aspects of your life that you are committed to meeting performance standards of.
Resources – Ongoing interests
Archives – Any other category that is no longer active

Progressive Summarization

5% of your notes are more valuable than the rest
Wander and explore
Every time you touch a note, improve it and make it slightly more discoverable for your future self

Summarize it – emphasize the most important, relevant information
Summarize the summarizations

You can scale the amount of attention that you pay- according to how relevant the source is to your projects

Quotables:

“When you have everything at your fingertips- you can start to see connections between things that would not be apparent if your information was stuck in files. “
“Evernote is one of the more personal apps…..It’s your own thinking, your own ideas, your own brainstorms, your musings, your journal entries, your work in progress. All the messiness you don’t necessarily show the world, you keep in an app like this.”

“Define projects much smaller than you are used to”

“Once each little piece has its own value, you can put them together in different structures.”

“In one glance, at the 5th or 6th level of summarization, you can get the gist of en entire book in one instance.”

“Using a system in every place that you have files eliminates the cognitive burden of switching from one organizing scheme to another.”

Links and resources mention:

Article on PARA method
TextExpander and Writing Automation with Greg Scown
TextExpander
Sexy Evernote Settings with Stacy Harmon
Radical Productivity – Evernote PowerUsers Course by Stacy Harmon
James Clear – Book Summaries
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse
Things
Zack’s Kanban training

Connect with Tiago:

fortelabs.co
Twitter
LinkedIn
Clarity FM
buildingasecondbrain.com

Free Training Next Week!

This short Kanban training (25 mins) was created to show you how to get more control over your work and all the demands on your time. The control comes from Kanban’s unique ability to make your work visible.

The free training streams live at two times this Friday, July 14.

See Recorded Training + Enroll In a Free Kanban Course Here.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure.

The shownotes can be found at zacharysexton.com/23