The Definitive Guide To Digital Productivity | Tiago Forte

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   ... were not trained…

   1. TFTiago Forte0:00

      ... were not trained or educated in any way to think of ourselves as creators. And that's the term I like to use, creator. You know, 'cause you can be creating anything. It's we- it's websites, it's videos, it's interviews, it's events, right? But until you actually step out and y- really, y- you're putting yourself on the line, right? Like people who are endlessly just accumulating knowledge and accumu- more and more books read, I mean that is, that is a, such a, it's such a, um, non-participatory way of living in my view. You know, better to read o- consume 1/10 as much, as much information online and actually put that to use, rather than just like racking up the, you know, the vanity metrics.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:46

      Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I am joined by Tiago Forte of Forte Labs. We have already bonded over the fact that he too is an AirPods evangelist, and I think that gives you a bit of an idea about what we're in for today. We're going to be talking digital optimization and how we can become more efficient in our online lives. Tiago, welcome to the show.

   3. TFTiago Forte1:09

      Thank you, Chris. It's really, really good to be here.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:11

      Yeah. I'm excited to go through today. So, uh, I'm gonna get straight into it. The Digital Productivity Pyramid was a blog post that you wrote about a year ago, and me and a couple of friends came across it, and it was a, a real frame shift for us. Um, I was super impressed with it and I think pretty much since then I've been hassling you in your inbox to try and get you on, so I'm very glad that we've found some time to get the AirPods in your ears and, uh-

   5. TFTiago Forte1:39

      Amazing.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:40

      ... to run through this. So, let's take it from the top. Can you explain to people who've never heard of yourself or, uh, Forte Labs, which is the, the, uh, blogging company that you run and, or the Digital Productivity Pyramid. Can you explain what it is and your philosophy behind it to begin with?

   7. TFTiago Forte1:57

      Sure. Sure. Um, so the pyramid really is not a pyramid scheme, I promise. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson2:05

      (laughs)

   9. TFTiago Forte2:06

      Uh, it is a, it's a framework. It's a framework that I developed, um, maybe a couple of years ago. I mean, I formalized it a couple years ago, but it's definitely been rattling around in my head for some years. And it really came about when I, when I just realized, you know, as this productivity expert, productivity trainer, productivity blogger, uh, I run around every day making grand promises of revolu- of revolutionizing people's work performance, and I just realized, well, you have to have some theory of what improvement even means, right?

   10. CWChris Williamson2:39

       Yeah.

   11. TFTiago Forte2:40

       And I, I looked around at what was out there and all a- the available ones, you know, more tasks completed seemed completely outdated, uh, you know, minutes of focus even kinda seemed like overly simplistic. Um, y- I looked at a ton of metrics. I was super involved in the quantified self, uh, movement-

   12. CWChris Williamson2:57

       Mm-hmm.

   13. TFTiago Forte2:57

       ... for some years. I've given a bunch of talks, and I just realized none of those did the trick.

   14. CWChris Williamson3:01

       Mm-hmm.

   15. TFTiago Forte3:01

       And so instead of focusing on metrics, on measuring some output, which I think with creative knowledge work is basically impossible, I chose to focus on the skills. What is the ladder, the pyramid of skills that a modern knowledge worker would need to acquire, um, in order to execute their work successfully? Um, and a large part of it came about accidentally. I actually looked at my courses that I'd developed. Y- you know, each course that I've done came out of the needs of the previous course, right? I would create a course and then look and then see, you know, the people completing it, what, what are they still needing? What are they still lacking? And then I would create the next course. And I've only done three courses, but those are the first three levels of the pyramid, and now I have my eye on the fourth level which is starting to emerge. Really, it's emerging. It's, it's appearing before my eyes as the next thing that people need. Uh, and we can get into y- what each of one of those are, but that's the basic story.

   16. CWChris Williamson3:53

       I understand. Yes. Uh, I was reading Deep Work by Cal Newport recently. I know it's overdue and his publishers sent me very kindly, thank you, Cal, had sent me Digital Minimalism as well, which is next on the list to read. Um, but going through Deep Work, uh, listeners at home who are knowledge workers may not quite understand what we mean when we say that the output is difficult to define, but if you were to think back to a typical job 50 to 100 years ago, cranking widgets I think is the, the term that Cal Newport uses, which is where you would have some machine shop worker, you would have a, a bucket of undone parts in one side, a machine that was a process in the middle, and a bucket of completed parts on the other side. It was very easy for you to see when a part was uncompleted, in process, and completed. It was also easy for you to track how much was to be done and how much you had done. Um, whereas it's a lot more kind of nebulous and cloudy and, and, and just difficult to define. You wake up with an amount of emails in your inbox and sometimes you go to bed with more having done loads all day and you have these, um, serendipitous wor- open work spaces which Cal's very critical of and, um, yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there saying that it's difficult to define when work gets done, and your solution to that as you're suggesting is to focus on building a lattice work of effective skills and frameworks that you can work upon and hopefully allowing the outputs to kind of look after themselves on the other side. Is that right?

   17. TFTiago Forte5:30

       It is. It is, yeah. And it's, it's not that the outputs don't matter or, or something like that, it's, it's that they're sort of outside of my purview, you know? I, I don't, I don't think there is a way, it's like all the mechanical sort of widget jobs, like you said, have now been taken by machines. The only ones that are left are inherently ambiguous, inherently undefined, inherently unstructured. And by definition you can't... You know, metrics require repeatability. Me- a metric only, is only meaningful with a repeatable process. So when you're doing essentially art, and I know people hate the idea that they're artists, but basically in a way we, we are all artists now. Um, defining the problem is like most of the work.... right? So I guess you could make a metric, you know, problems defined, but it just gets, it just gets really weird and actually can be, um, can be bad when you focus on a metric to the exclusion of the experience of the satisfaction of the fulfillment, which, when you're doing work like we're doing that's creative, you, it, being motivated and satisfied and fulfilled is not optional. That's not like, "Oh, it's great that you like your factory job."

   18. CWChris Williamson6:34

       (laughs)

   19. TFTiago Forte6:34

       It's like you literally cannot go on, you cannot give of yourself what you have to give to do that kind of work if you're not fulfilled.

   20. CWChris Williamson6:43

       I understand. There is, uh, an inherent degree of satisfaction that comes with crossing things off a list. We are, um, as well as being Apple evangelists, we're also big lovers of the Pomodoro technique and using the very obvious crossing off of a list or the coloring out or the ticking off of an item. There is such a... And it's so, uh, it's such a common, right, on modern knowledge work that we need to kind of artificially create this done big button that we hit that identifies the fact that we've actually completed something. But it, it, it's the antidote to a degree of this, I don't know when work begins and work ends. I think there was a, a statistic that 80% of American knowledge workers check their emails after 11:00 at night and before 7:00 in the morning, like both of them. So you're like, you may be getting up at 3:00 in the morning to check your emails. Like who... So I think you're, you're, you're totally right with what you say. So moving on to the pyramid itself, there's some core principles and then there's some layers, some levels should I say. Where are we gonna start?

   21. TFTiago Forte7:53

       I mean, we can just start at the bottom and work our way up.

   22. CWChris Williamson7:55

       Let's go.

   23. TFTiago Forte7:57

       Okay. So the... Well, first of all, let me just say what the, the five layers or levels of the pyramid are.

   24. CWChris Williamson8:05

       Mm-hmm.

   25. TFTiago Forte8:07

       Um, the first base layer is what I call digital fluency. Um, and I'll describe that in a minute. The second one on top of that is task management and workflow, basically to-do lists. Um, the third one is habit formation and behavior change, which you're very familiar with. The fourth level is what I call personal knowledge management, PKM, which is essentially storing your knowledge in some sort of digital tool, uh, you know, offloading that knowledge from your brain onto, onto a, onto a software program. Um, and the fifth level, which is the most, uh, currently ambiguous, the most mysterious, but also I think eventually kind of the culmination of all of this, is a framework I'm developing, a methodology I'm developing called Just In Time Project Management.

   26. CWChris Williamson8:54

       Interesting. Is that-

   27. TFTiago Forte8:55

       Uh, which is a...

   28. CWChris Williamson8:56

       Is that gonna be tip of the spear for you? (laughs)

   29. TFTiago Forte8:58

       Probably, probably, yeah, yeah. It all comes back to the same stuff. (laughs) Uh, so, uh, yeah, so the, the basic idea is that the, the levels go from more, I'd say more basic at the bottom to more advanced or more sophisticated at the top. Um, but I wouldn't really say they go from easy to hard, right? Because what's hard is just whatever level you're currently working on, right? And in some ways the base level, which is, is essentially just like how to use a computer, is the hardest, right? If you know someone, you know, I know people my parents' age, you know, if they never learn to do that, basically they're, they're kind of not going to be able to take advantage of all the other levels. Um, so, so yeah, I'll just talk about that. Um, actually I'll say one more thing about that. So each level builds on the one before and so what that means is that each level is sort of enabling or setting the ground for the level above it. It's kind of like a hierarchy of skills or a hierarchy of knowledge. It's like you have to start at the bottom, but then once you create a layer for yourself, you have then the skills and the knowledge to start building the second layer. Um, and then l- the last thing I'll say about that is there is also this kind of a spiral effect. Sometimes I get people like, "Okay, I'm just gonna finish one level 100% completely and then do the whole second level perfectly." But that's not quite how it works. It's kind of more like a cycle.

   30. CWChris Williamson10:29

       Mm-hmm.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Oh, yeah. I'm a…

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      10 seconds, and command and V and command and C and stuff like that, I'm gonna guess. Is there... Have you... Are you familiar with Alfred? Alfred app?

   2. TFTiago Forte15:09

      Oh, yeah. I'm a big Alfred fan.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:10

      Oh, you are among friends here, Tiago.

   4. TFTiago Forte15:14

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson15:14

      You really... This is a safe space for you to talk about your s-

   6. TFTiago Forte15:17

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson15:17

      ... your snippets and your workflow and everything. Um, so-

   8. TFTiago Forte15:22

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson15:22

      (laughs) ... um, the listeners at home, head to alfredapp.com. You, you need it in your life if you're on Mac. And if you're on Windows, unlucky, because they literally do not, do not even make it for Windows.

   10. TFTiago Forte15:33

       Yeah. I know.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:34

       Um, so digital calendars, what do you use? Uh, I know that we did this over Google Calendar. Are you a Google Calendar man?

   12. TFTiago Forte15:42

       Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's really just Google Calendar, but I'm s- I'm still amazed, uh, how many people don't have digital calendars. I regularly encounter even professionals with years of experience who are still using, um, paper.

   13. CWChris Williamson15:55

       Mm-hmm. My business partner has a-

   14. TFTiago Forte15:57

       It's kind of amazing.

   15. CWChris Williamson15:57

       My business partner has a Filofax, like a one, uh, like week per two pages Filofax thing that he likes to write down and he just likes to have it. I'm like, "Oh, man." It's-

   16. TFTiago Forte16:10

       Ugh.

   17. CWChris Williamson16:10

       It's... He's a curmudgeon when it comes to that. I will convert him eventually, but we don't know. Um, moving on to scheduling apps. Oh, by the way, uh, Google Calendar, like, you... It's... I've fully transitioned now from iCal to Google Calendar.

   18. TFTiago Forte16:23

       Mm.

   19. CWChris Williamson16:24

       Um, and the way that it links in with when you get a flight, like, you get an email about a flight and then your flight info's already in Google Calendar with your check-in and it links to the email. Like, it's, it's so good. It is, it is really good. Um, scheduling apps, what are we talking about there?

   20. TFTiago Forte16:40

       So I use one called... Shoot, what is it called? Uh, there's different ones, like Calendly, uh, I mean, there's at least a dozen of them.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:51

       Yeah.

   22. TFTiago Forte16:51

       Every... I mean, it's, it's a bit of an issue actually, because there's no standard like there is with Google Calendar.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:56

       Mm-hmm.

   24. TFTiago Forte16:56

       So every time I schedule someone, I have to sort of navigate a new interface. I, I wish someone would just acquir- like merge them all or-

   25. CWChris Williamson17:02

       Yep.

   26. TFTiago Forte17:03

       ... you know, acquire them.

   27. CWChris Williamson17:04

       Someone with a couple-

   28. TFTiago Forte17:04

       Um, because-

   29. CWChris Williamson17:05

       ... of billion can just take all 12 companies and-

   30. TFTiago Forte17:06

       Yeah, c- please, if you're listening, you got a couple-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. Time tracking is…

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      super adamant, and if Tim says it, I'm- I'm gonna probably presume that he's right. Uh, time tracking is up next.

   2. TFTiago Forte30:07

      Yeah. Time tracking is amazing. Um, and it's not, like... It's funny. People have really weird sort of associations with time tracking. I think they think of the punch card.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:18

      (laughs) .

   4. TFTiago Forte30:18

      They have, you know, trauma from their nine to five job where they had to, uh, you know, be there exactly from this time to that time, or maybe they were paid by the- the hour. So they sort of, it feels like a ball and chain. But I think when you become more autonomous, and whether that's being a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or just as, uh, valid, just being higher up in your organization where you kind of have, you know, freedom to work how you wanna work.... um, time tracking becomes this whole- it becomes basically a tool of self-awareness. You know, people- people have such bad intuition about time. They... And- and time is- is- is the currency of, uh, life. I mean, obviously, it's the- it's just the basic building block of all experience. Until you have a sense, you know. Like, I think if I used to quote Jobs, like I would have a project, "Oh yeah, build this website." "Yeah, psh, I can build a website in two hours." (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson31:10

      (laughs)

   6. TFTiago Forte31:11

      You know? And then you- and then you do the time tracking and actually track that project, and then you look at the end and you see... Like I literally had projects when I was first getting started whe- when, you know, when I had- could barely pay the rent, that I would make much less than minimum wage by the time all the- the time was factored in.

   7. CWChris Williamson31:26

      Yeah.

   8. TFTiago Forte31:26

      Like way less.

   9. CWChris Williamson31:27

      Yeah.

   10. TFTiago Forte31:28

       And then I would look at other projects that were, um... I had some source of leverage or maybe I reused past knowledge or something. This is actually what got me started with knowledge management, is I realized if I can complete a project in half the time because of this existing knowledge that I've captured, then my per hour rate doubles.

   11. CWChris Williamson31:45

       Yeah.

   12. TFTiago Forte31:45

       And I would have like a- like a 50... Literally a 50 times differential between, uh, per hour between my lowest paid project and my highest. Now guess which one I should take in the future. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson31:58

       Yeah. Yeah.

   14. TFTiago Forte31:59

       Right?

   15. CWChris Williamson31:59

       Sure.

   16. TFTiago Forte31:59

       So it's pretty amazing.

   17. CWChris Williamson32:01

       So how are you tracking your time? What are you using?

   18. TFTiago Forte32:04

       So I don't anymore actually. I kind of think of it as a phase.

   19. CWChris Williamson32:07

       Yeah.

   20. TFTiago Forte32:08

       It's a- it's a phase and it... One may come again.

   21. CWChris Williamson32:10

       Yeah.

   22. TFTiago Forte32:11

       Uh, if I need to build up that self-awareness again. But for about three years, uh, I used HoursTracker, which is a little app, a paid app. I think there's a free version too for iOS. I'm not sure, it might have an Android version by now too. Um, but it's just very simple, you know. What I really don't recommend is, um, automatic time tracking. Things like Hou- like, uh, RescueTime or, um, what's the other one? There's another one that starts with a T.

   23. CWChris Williamson32:37

       Yeah.

   24. TFTiago Forte32:37

       Um, because that... You- you can't... If you make something automatic, so therefore you don't pay attention to it, you can't build self-awareness, right? And plus, that data is not useful. It's like, "Oh, I spent, you know, seven hours today on my web browser." Well, everything happens in the browser.

   25. CWChris Williamson32:51

       Yeah.

   26. TFTiago Forte32:51

       It's- it's pointless. So what HoursTracker, uh, forces you to do is manual. It's really like a punch clock.

   27. CWChris Williamson32:57

       Yeah.

   28. TFTiago Forte32:57

       You say, "I'm gonna do this now." And then you- you select that project or that activity, and then when you're done you say, "I'm finished." And you clock out. And it's amazing what a- what a forcing function it creates, right? 'Cause once you've clocked in and then you go to reach for social media or email or something else you go, "Oh no, I have to protect my data integrity." And then-

   29. CWChris Williamson33:16

       (laughs)

   30. TFTiago Forte33:17

       ... you stay on track just- just because that's what you've clocked into, you know?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I get you. So…

   1. TFTiago Forte45:00

      cup of coffee, ready to go, instead of, "Oh, let me start way at the beginning, thinking of my open loops, checking my email, clarifying, organizing." You actually are ready to just look at your task manager, pick a subset of, in my case, 8.1 tasks for the day, um, and then just actually produce value and, and get things done, like the name says, instead of pla- you know, doing your work instead planning your work, because you've pre-planned and pre-organized all these things.

   2. CWChris Williamson45:27

      I get you. So with the fact that you're capturing quite quickly and then reflecting on a weekly basis, where do you draw the line between something comes into your sphere of attention or sphere of awareness, uh, someone texts you, there's something that needs to be done, someone asks you a question, you realize there's something that you need to get from the store later on, or whatever it might be. When d- or where do you draw the line between doing the, the action now or scheduling it for later?

   3. TFTiago Forte45:59

      I mean, uh, for things, so, so David Allen uses a two-minute rule. Uh, if you just can do it immediately, do it, right? He, he kind of chose two minutes as the threshold under which it's not worth all this time of, uh, doing all these things. The thing is that, that people ... and we even talked about this when I was on his podcast. People seriously underestimate how much, uh, or overestimate how much two minutes is, right? I mean, two minutes is like nothing. It's like it goes by in a second, right?

   4. CWChris Williamson46:29

      Yeah.

   5. TFTiago Forte46:29

      Um, so you, you sort of have to, in a weird way ... There, there's something else that happens too, which is usually when you have one open loop, one thing you're trying to remember to do, you're like, "Oh, that's fine, one thing I can remember. Two things, three things, four things." And then you get around like five or seven, and it's only then that you realize, "Oh my gosh, I, there, I, I, it's falling out. The balls are falling out of there."

   6. CWChris Williamson46:48

      I'm getting crushed under the weight of my tasks here. Yeah.

   7. TFTiago Forte46:50

      Yes. Yeah, so, so in a way you have to sort of, uh, like underestimate yourself. You could keep five to seven tasks in your head. But you have to like, it ... And it's really, you'd have to train yourself when one open loop arrives, or two, to think, "Okay, I could remember these, but let me just capture them." Right? It's, it's sort of, it's, it's a habit, it's self-discipline. Because over time, you know, you really do have like thousands of tasks every year.

   8. CWChris Williamson47:15

      Inbox zero for your brain.

   9. TFTiago Forte47:19

      Basically, yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson47:21

       Nice. I like it.

   11. TFTiago Forte47:23

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:23

       Uh, so we're moving on to level three. We've, we've finished level two though, right? There's nothing else that we need to touch on there?

   13. TFTiago Forte47:30

       Uh, yeah, pretty much.

   14. CWChris Williamson47:31

       So habit formation and behavior change. James Clear's been on recently, so everyone will be primed and prepped, ready for this one.

   15. TFTiago Forte47:41

       Yes. So this actually emerged, um, I had a, uh, my course called Get Stuff Done Like A Boss, which was on, that went on GTD. But then, you know, I, I finished the course saying, uh, "You know, now you're, now you know it. Now you have it. The only thing you must do from now on is your weekly review. Okay? Put it on your calendar, schedule it, and just do it." I was like, "Oh, yeah, this, this'll be easy." And then, of course, as I follow up with people, as I hear back, that's the thing that they don't do, right? It's the linchpin, the, the keystone habit, right? The o- the one habit upon which all others rely. And it's hard to do. You know, if you're not used to setting aside an hour or two a week to actually reflect on everything you're committed to, it feels like this just tremendous burden. Um-

   16. CWChris Williamson48:23

       And I, I guess as well with the, (clears throat) with the increased velocity of capture of to-do lists, w- if you don't have the reflect, what you've actually done is just pile weight on top of yourself, and you then eventually do a, a, a undisciplined manner, look at this, and you just get like, get everything in the face, get hit in the face by these old artifacts of a, a, a time gone by when you were noting them all down, um, and it probably even would make some people shy away from being so efficient with the capture.... because they're-

   17. TFTiago Forte48:59

       Yes.

   18. CWChris Williamson49:00

       ... they're giving themselves this future curse that they're gonna have to come up against?

   19. TFTiago Forte49:04

       It's true. It's really true. Yeah, y- it's confronting. It's very confronting.

   20. CWChris Williamson49:10

       You're right.

   21. TFTiago Forte49:10

       Um, so, so what the... so I created a... my next course was called Design Your Habits, um, and it was really, at the time, uh, and actually up until just this past December, I was living in Silicon Valley. So, I was just immersed in the, the Power of Habit stuff, we go to Habit meetups, Quantified Self, um, you know, uh, b- I was i- really into B.J. Fogg and all his stuff. Uh, I went to the Habit summit, which is Neil Eyal, the, the author of Hooked, um, i- his kind of behavior change, habit design stuff, um-

   22. CWChris Williamson49:41

       What are those-

   23. TFTiago Forte49:42

       ... and-

   24. CWChris Williamson49:42

       ... what are those conventions like?

   25. TFTiago Forte49:44

       Oh, they're wild.

   26. CWChris Williamson49:45

       (laughs)

   27. TFTiago Forte49:45

       They're so much fun.

   28. CWChris Williamson49:46

       (laughs) Right.

   29. TFTiago Forte49:46

       They're so much fun because they're just uber nerds in this particular domain-

   30. CWChris Williamson49:51

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   I love that. That's…

   1. TFTiago Forte1:00:00

      to conform to a set of a priori objectives that you imagined at some very early immature stage. (laughs) The point of life is to experience life, right, and to experience it in a not always controlled way, right? Like to, to fully ... I was just writing about this in a blog post. Like, you know, it is the lack of control of life that allows life to be exciting and invigorating and just, just from time to time absolutely terrifying, um, but I mean, life is worth living because it's unpredictable. And I think ... I, I'm sort of, like, putting that into my productivity philosophy by saying allow your goals to be discovered or even in a wa- in a way to discover you. Allow your s- your goals to set you instead of you setting your goals. (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00:52

      I love that. That's really, that's a really nice way to put it, and I doubt that many people would have presumed that a digital productivity pyramid would have, uh, encapsulated something that was quite so, uh, uh, fluffy and philosophical and conceptual, but here we are. Uh, so we're moving on to Reflect, the weekly review, which is the linchpin, as you said, of this particular, uh, this particular habit set.

   3. TFTiago Forte1:01:15

      Yes. Yes. So it's, it's really a habit. This is the only one of these habits actually that is sort of, uh, fixed in time. You know, you can say... I think David Allen recommends Wednesday afternoon. Everyone has their theory of, oh, the one time you must do it. Um-

   4. CWChris Williamson1:01:28

      When do you do yours?

   5. TFTiago Forte1:01:28

      ... I don't... So I actually don't have ... (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson1:01:31

      Oh God, Tiago, we're rumbling you on a, a minute-y basis here.

   7. TFTiago Forte1:01:36

      I know. Everything... It's clear that I don't follow my own advice but, um, uh, so my... So... Okay, I always do it around the same time. Actually, that's not even true. The way that I do my weekly review is based on the level of perspective that I need. Um, and this is, this is actually the thing. Looking at this whole pyramid, every time there's like a fixed recommendation, you have to do it this way, really that's a spectrum, right? It can be adjusted up and down depending on your needs. And I think that's a higher level of sophistication. You know, you... At first, you, you slavishly follow the two-minute rule and that's useful. You want to discipline yourself according to that standard. But then you realize, oh, actually... You know, an example is when you come back from vacation and you have, you know, 2,000 emails or something to read. If you follow the two-minute rule, you're going to be doing nothing but answering emails for three and a half days.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:02:26

      Yeah.

   9. TFTiago Forte1:02:26

      Right? So in that case, you have to adjust that threshold down to, say, 30 seconds, and only actually respond to something that is, like, really, really fast.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:02:35

       Yeah.

   11. TFTiago Forte1:02:35

       Um, and the same thing is true of your weekly review. So, you know, sometimes I'm working, it's clear, it's clear to me what I need to be working on for a few weeks at a time, right? If I'm working on, say, a manuscript of my book, right? I don't need... In fact, it's actually bad, it throws me off course for me to grind that to a halt, you know, all that mental momentum of, like, the manuscript, to stop, "Oh, no, no, no. It's, it's Wednesday at 3:30 PM, I have to do my weekly review."

   12. CWChris Williamson1:03:02

       Yeah. Yeah.

   13. TFTiago Forte1:03:02

       You want to actually just, just maximize that forward momentum.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:03:06

       Yeah.

   15. TFTiago Forte1:03:06

       Um, but when I know I need to do my weekly review is when I wake up in the morning and I just have this feeling, I'm not sure what I should be doing today. To me, that's the trigger of, oh, it's time to take a step back, re- redo reconnaissance on all my projects, redo my calendar. It's like, get everything back into shape, um, so that I can have that clarity again.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:03:28

       I get it. Also, I, I totally understand what you mean about the fact that, uh, upon instantiating a lot of the strategies that we're going through today, these rigid rules are a good way to, to do them. It's the same reason that when a- anyone who's ever taken a martial arts class, they will learn how to jab and the process for a jab, or Brazilian jujitsu, the... You know, uh, taking whatever the fundamentals are, are quite rigidly defined because it is a useful framework for a beginner to layer their non-existent understanding over. But this conversation between myself and you is like a blue belt talking to like a seventh degree, like, black belt.

   17. TFTiago Forte1:04:09

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson1:04:10

       And you're now in this, uh, place where you are able to feel with a lot more fidelity and play around with the parameters of what the emergence of these strategies actually means. And it's that the weekly review is there every single week at the same time to create this framework, and it makes you accountable and it gives you this, this, uh, rep- repetition so that you learn to instantiate it. But you are right. Like, you would... The reason it's there weekly is presumably a week is around about the iteration, like, length that's, that's about right for you to need to do it. But completely correct. Sometimes it might be a month, sometimes it might be twice a week. Um, so yeah, I think you're, you're allowed to... When you're, when you're Tiago Forte, you're allowed to, um, to play around with the rules and, and break them sometimes.

   19. TFTiago Forte1:05:02

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:05:03

       (laughs)

   21. TFTiago Forte1:05:03

       Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the same thing in any domain. I think you're right. You know, in writing, you can only... You, you can break the rules and produce incredible, innovative pieces of writing, but only after you've mastered them, right? If you're a beginner trying to just break rules, it's just gonna be, you know, nonsensical, you know, whatever. (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson1:05:23

       Yeah. Because it's not emergent from an understanding of the rules themselves, right? Exactly.

   23. TFTiago Forte1:05:29

       Exactly.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:05:29

       So, uh, engage context/priorities. I don't know what this means.

   25. TFTiago Forte1:05:36

       Yeah. The, the... So Alan has this idea of context, which is the, the, the way you should decide what to do at any given time is based on the context in which you find yourself, right? It's not based on strict priority, it's not based on... It's just based on... So for example, you know, if you are, um, on the train and you only have your mobile device, let's say, you should only do tasks that are amenable, that make sense to do on your mobile device in that situation, right? You shouldn't sit down and try to, like, uh, do some big heavy lift if you know that you're gonna be getting off in 10 minutes. Uh, if you are, you know, walking through the city and you have your phone, you should make phone calls. You shouldn't try to, like... I mean, you could walk and like be typing on your phone or something-

   26. CWChris Williamson1:06:17

       Yeah.

   27. TFTiago Forte1:06:17

       ... but that doesn't make sense whi- while walking through a city. You should make phone calls.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:06:21

       Yeah.

   29. TFTiago Forte1:06:21

       Right? So... And that's different from priority. It's like, it's basically saying that the pr- the top priority in any given moment depends on... In his case he said the, the energy you have, how much energy is, is available to you, the tools you have, how much time you have, and then finally, last is the actual urgency, the p- the priority of it.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:06:41

       Yeah. I guess there's probably quite a lot of devils in the details with regards to that, this final one, this engage context and priorities. Um, I imagine, like, creating a formalized framework for this and instantiating it, probably a bit more, a bit more difficult to define. It's probably an experience game a little bit.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:18:34

   (laughs) …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:15:00

      you t- you touched on it at the very beginning, Yousef, that all of the listeners will know, one of the co-hosts, he, uh, describes himself as a furious indexer of information. Like his-

   2. TFTiago Forte1:15:11

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:15:12

      ... his Evernote, uh, I want to say is, like, up to between 5 and 10,000 notes on there now. And it's- the meta tags are unbelie- I mean, it would be, like it's like heaven for you, Tiago. You would- you'd love it. It's all very, very beautifully designed. But his point is that it is just ruthless indexing. Um, and when you don't actually then bring that forward into something, and as a- a perfect example for me, and some of the listeners might think as well, like, "Oh, well, I enjoy reading. I enjoy personal development. Or maybe I enjoy sci-fi or maybe I enjoy every," th- like, you know, whatever form of media it is. But I currently don't have an outlet that, uh, gives me a creative medium in which to put this on display. And that was one of the main reasons for me why I started this podcast, that I didn't have a, um, a platform in which I could talk about things that I was interested in and then begin to layer on top of each other all of the different things that I was learning about as I went on, and then I'd speak to you or James Clear or Rory Sutherland or, you know, whoever it might be. And then-

   4. TFTiago Forte1:16:21

      Exactly.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:16:22

      ... "Oh, I've now augmented my existing understanding with that." And not only have I had my understanding and their understanding, but when we've discussed them and brought them together, the sum has been greater than the whole of the parts. And I now have leveled up, and I know all of this extra stuff that I didn't even know existed before.

   6. TFTiago Forte1:16:41

      Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's- that's absolutely key. And it- it goes back to that thing of being artists. We're just- we're not trained or educated in any way to think of ourselves as creators. And that's the term I like to use, creator, you know? 'Cause you can be creating anything. It's web- it's websites, it's videos, it's interviews, it's events, right? But until you actually step out and really y- you're- you're putting yourself on the line, right? Like, people who are endlessly just accumulating knowledge, accumula- more and more books read, I mean, that is- that is a- such a- it's such a, um, non-participatory way of living, in my view. You know, better to read o- consume one tenth as much- as much information online and actually put that to use rather than just, like, racking up the, you know, the vanity metrics. Um, I- I think that's- that's what it is.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:17:32

      I- I agree. Um, just briefly before we move on to the pinnacle at level five, I wondered if you could just give us a brief explanation of your progressive summarization strategy. I know for many people that, uh, uh, and me included, it's selfishly for myself, um, I like to read on a Kindle Paperwhite, um, because it's n- low distraction. My phone is fettered with work stuff that I can't really get away from. Um, so for me, exporting notes, and I- I- I don't want to interrupt my read flow to create notes. Um, and for listeners at home, they may also have the problem of, "I read something. I can maybe do a little review in my head at the end of each chapter, but four or five or six chapters deep, I can't remember what was in chapter one." And then what is your- your process for you're reading a book or you're reading a- a very long article, a big chunk of information, how are you- how are you noting that down?

Episode duration: 1:22:20