Forte Labs

The modern frontier of productivity.

May 22, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #7: Interaction Over Consumption

In Part 6, I recommended treating any deliverable (whether it’s a simple email all the way to a full-fledged product) as a series of evoluti

Jun 8, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #18: Motivational Waves

In Part 17, I argued that unique states of mind are the most powerful resource available to knowledge workers. But these states are difficul

Sep 2, 2018

The Personal Narrative Vision

In my previous article on how I perform my Annual Review, I briefly discussed the Personal Narrative Vision (PNV) exercise. I’ve developed t

Nov 9, 2020

How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes

Over the last year I filmed a short documentary on the life and artistic career of my father Wayne Forte. He has been one of the strongest

Dec 28, 2017

Progressive Summarization II: Examples and Metaphors

Let’s look at how a single source can proceed through the layers of progressive summarization. These are Layer 1 notes I took on an article

Dec 28, 2017

Progressive Summarization III: Guidelines and Principles

In Part I, I explained Progressive Summarization, a method for easily creating highly discoverable notes. In Part II, I gave you many exampl

May 22, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #6: Evolving Deliverables

In Part 5, I introduced The Iron Triangle of Project Management and the idea that any given deliverable can be reduced or expanded in scope

Jun 1, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #14: Personal Productivity Networks

In Part 13, we looked at the benefits of Component Thinking, which involves thinking of any product we are working on as made up of subcompo

Jun 10, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #19: Explosive Inspiration

In Part 18, I introduced the idea that our states of mind come and go in “waves of motivation,” and that we should try to use them to our ad

Oct 9, 2018

A Maker’s Ethos in the Era of Networked Attention

Once upon a time, we faced the scourge of Information Overload. Too many emails with too many details producing too many open loops to keep

Oct 11, 2018

Tiago’s Life Goals

I’ve decided to post my list of life goals here, after years of being cagey and secretive about them. My fear has been that people will some

Oct 17, 2020

Finding an Agent and Publisher

You should think of the people you’re working with at each stage of the publishing process as your publishing team. Each one contributes som

Jun 10, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #20: Speed as a Capability

In Part 19, I argued that continuously finding new sources of motivation was the most important challenge for knowledge workers, and that th

Mar 16, 2021

Introducing: Praxis Fellows Essays

Hello Praxsters!I have something special to share with you today: the first contributions of our Praxis Writing Fellows!I recruited a few of

Dec 4, 2018

10 Things I Learned as a VA with Tiago

By Kathryn Tongg 1. Establish the preferred method of communication right away. Everyone has a way they prefer to communicate. Whether this

May 28, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #11: Late Starts on the Critical Path

In Part 10, I argued that digital knowledge work was fundamentally different than other kinds of work, because its structure, features, and

Mar 11, 2019

My 10-Step Book Publishing Strategy

In The Four Pathways of Modern Book Publishing, I described the main routes for a writer to get published today, and in The Case for Traditi

Jan 22, 2021

The Modern Swipe File

15 Unexpected Uses for Digital Notes

Apr 12, 2018

Trekonomics: The Economics of Post-Scarcity

I recently finished listening to the audiobook of Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek (Amazon Affiliate Link), by Manu Saadia. It was pr

Feb 16, 2019

Behind the Scenes of a Profitable Online Course

I advise everyone I know to create an online course. Everyone has something to say. Everyone has valuable knowledge that others could benefi

Mar 16, 2021

Paranoid Productivity

By Christina LuoProductivity is about managing emotions as much as projects. Yet we often focus on productivity as a toolset more than a min

Jun 5, 2018

Just-In-Time PM #17: States of Mind

In Part 16, we refined our understanding of Return on Attention by taking into account our biggest constraint as knowledge workers – not jus

Jul 21, 2019

Tiago’s 2019 Mid-Year Review

The following are the results of my Mid-Year Review, which I do every year around the beginning of July. It is a simple process of reflectio

Jan 17, 2018

The Annual Review is a Rearchitecture

I previously described how the weekly review is an operating system, funneling each bit of information you captured during the week to its p