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Forte Labs Newsletter

The Creative Power of Procrastination

Published 10 months ago • 3 min read

For a limited time this week, we're opening the doors to our Second Brain Membership.

You can now join the best community for personal knowledge management, where dedicated individuals use technology and information to create the life they want.

I made a short video to tell you more about it:

video preview​

The Second Brain Membership is only open for enrollment until Friday, June 7th, at midnight ET. I hope to see you inside!

3 Key Reminders for Organizing Your Information

Over the years, I've shared a lot about why, how, and when to organize the information in your life. Here are the three key things I keep coming back to:

1. Creating new things is what really matters

Don’t get caught up in organizing for the sake of it. The ultimate goal of organizing information is to enable you to create and take action. By focusing on tangible outcomes, you ensure that your organizational efforts directly contribute to your creative and productive endeavours.

2. Organize by actionability

Store your notes where they will be most useful the soonest. Think of information as perishable goods – the most actionable notes need to be front and center before they go “bad.” This approach ensures that you have quick access to the most relevant information exactly when you need it.

3. Your Second Brain is a dynamic, constantly changing system

Don’t strive for a "perfect" but static system. It should evolve with your needs and priorities. Information flows fluidly from one place to another, adapting as your projects and goals change. This adaptability allows your Second Brain to remain an effective tool for your growth and productivity.

The Creative Power of Procrastination

Creativity is often described as an elusive, even magical, phenomenon. In reality, it’s a skill – and there are many ways to prime your brain to be more creative.

Surprisingly, one of them is procrastination.

We generally think of procrastination as a bad habit, a mental hurdle we need to overcome. But research shows that delaying and postponing tasks can actually stimulate creative thinking — provided the conditions are just right.

This guest blog post explores the techniques that can turn procrastination into one of your most creative habits.

Book Recommendation: In This Economy? How Money & Markets Really Work

Today, I want to put the first book by finance writer Kyla Scanlon on your radar. Here's what it's about in her own words...

"When we live in a world that we don’t understand, it gets overwhelming and confusing and noisy and loud.

Understanding the system that you live in is key to making good decisions in the system.

Understanding the economy in all its simplicity and complexity is one of the most important things we can do."

I highly recommend you pick up this book if you want to understand the crazy new economy (and world) we live in now.

Productivity Tip: How to Automate Your Typing & Save Hours

Typing away at your computer for hours every day? Yeah, same here.

If you’re anything like me, much of that time is spent repeating the same tasks – typing your name, email address, Zoom links, and common phrases over and over. It might only take a few seconds each time, but it adds up!

As a productivity geek, I found the perfect solution to automate this repetitive typing: a text expander.

With a text expander, you can type a custom abbreviation, and it instantly inserts full snippets of text (even with personalized information). This simple tool has revolutionized my workflow, making me significantly faster and more efficient.

The text expander I recommend is Magical AI.

Magical AI is a free browser extension that goes above and beyond to help you...

  • Reply to emails and messages 10x faster by saving frequent responses while still personalizing them.
  • Fill out forms and spreadsheets automatically, eliminating the need for manual copy and paste.
  • Write entire emails, messages, and replies quickly with a 1-click, contextual AI writer.

You can install Magical AI in your browser in less than a minute, saving you time on over 10 million websites. And it doesn’t store your data so it never leaves your computer.

Thanks to Magical for sponsoring this newsletter!

Build your Second Brain

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Create a system for productivity

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Organize your digital life

​Get the PARA Method →​

Tiago Forte

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Forte Labs Newsletter

Build your Second Brain with Tiago Forte

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