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Tiago Forte

00:05

Welcome to Pillars of Productivity, the ultimate guide to leveraging technology to transform your productivity. As you embark on this journey, I want to give you some context and guidelines that will help you be successful. Let's start by introducing the 4 pillars of productivity we'll be covering in this course. See, so much of modern work and life is characterized by this feeling of information overwhelm.

Tiago Forte

00:36

We all have to take in, make sense of, and then use so much information just to make it through the day. Not to mention use it to solve problems and produce results. Luckily, there's a way to offload most of that information to the incredible technology we now have access to, productivity apps, so we can focus and be present to what really matters. If you think of your productivity system as a building you're constructing, there are 4 pillars at the corners of that building that hold it all together.

Tiago Forte

01:09

Each of these pillars is a software program, an app, that fulfills a critical function in modern life. They are your digital calendar, a task manager or digital to-do list, a digital notes app, and a read later app. These tools are so powerful but no 1 ever really taught us how to use them effectively. Have you noticed?

Tiago Forte

01:32

That's what we're doing here, filling in your education when it comes to digital productivity. As I wrote about in my book, Building a Second Brain, you can think of these 4 apps as a digital second brain that takes over some of the jobs that our biological minds are not well suited to. Just like your biological brain, your second brain has 2 hemispheres, each 1 dedicated to processing a certain kind of information. The left hemisphere is dedicated to actionable information, things you need to do or execute.

Tiago Forte

02:05

The right hemisphere is dedicated to non-actionable, also known as reference information, content you want to save for the future and reference only when it's needed. On the actionable side here, we have 2 essential apps. Your digital calendar for keeping track of time-specific commitments, such as meetings, appointments, or phone calls. And your task manager, which is an app for tracking all your to-dos in digital form.

Tiago Forte

02:31

The reference side over here is also made up of 2 essential apps, your digital notes app, where you save any ideas, insights, research findings, or creative musings, and your read later app, where you store all the content you want to consume in the future, such as articles, videos, or podcasts. The information that flows into these 4 places can come from many different sources, but we're really going to be focusing on 1 primary source, which is email. Email, for most professionals, is the highest volume source of new commitments and ideas and content and responsibilities, and you really wanna have a system for consistently clearing and processing everything that arrives there. The output of these 4 pillars is going to be your weekly review.

Tiago Forte

03:22

A time and place where you sit down to review your active projects, decide what you want to focus on for the coming weeks, and have those decisions be informed and supported by the 4 kinds of information you've taken the time to save in your 4 pillars. Don't worry, we'll dedicate 1 entire lesson to exploring each of these pillars. The point I want to make here is that I want you to start thinking of your productivity as a system, a system that exists outside of yourself that you can design and tweak and change. Anytime you start to feel overwhelmed, instead of beating yourself up or feeling guilty, you can just ask, what is going wrong in my system that is causing this feeling?

Tiago Forte

04:09

This course is not just about passive consumption. It's about active implementation. To reinforce your understanding and put your newfound knowledge into action, we've incorporated the following key elements in every lesson. Each lesson starts with a mindset shift.

Tiago Forte

04:25

This is a change in perspective or a different way of thinking about the common tools we'll be using, even if you've already been using them for years. From there, I'll walk you through how to set up the different pillars of your productivity system and give you best practices and guidelines for how to use them. In each lesson, you'll find a video that serves as your primary source of instruction. The videos are short, engaging, practical, giving you only the essential knowledge you need to know along with concrete action steps.

Tiago Forte

04:56

Each video has captions so you can follow along more easily, and also transcripts so you can review the material in written form. You can even use the search function to find and review specific points within each video. Each video is followed by suggestions for free and paid apps and tools you can use. How did we pick the apps we recommend to you?

Tiago Forte

05:18

We selected apps that we love to use ourselves and many of them we've used for years, as well as other tools that are generally popular and widely adopted in the market. With that being said, you don't have to strictly follow our recommendations And you're more than welcome to use any other tool that you feel works better for your needs. In the Your Turn section, we'll challenge you to take action. Apply what you've learned to your own life and your own work.

Tiago Forte

05:44

This hands-on experience is where the magic happens. We've created a comprehensive workbook. You can download and complete on your computer or print out on paper if you prefer that. It contains every single action step, checklist, and resource mentioned throughout the course, all in 1 central place.

Tiago Forte

06:03

We deeply believe in the power of a supportive community when it comes to education. Use the comments in each lesson to share your answers, insights, and experiences. Interact with your peers, gain inspiration from their thinking and responses, and even collaborate to come up with solutions to challenges that you face. Before you dive into the course, there are 3 guiding principles I want to offer you.

Tiago Forte

06:31

Adopting these for yourself will make you far more successful, not only in completing this course, but in implementing and sustaining what I'll be teaching you. First, automate the boring parts so you have time for the exciting parts. The approach and the system of productivity I'm going to be teaching you is very process-driven and rules-based. But the idea isn't to turn you into a ruthless productivity machine.

Tiago Forte

06:57

In fact, it's just the opposite. What we're trying to do is Get all the boring parts of our work and lives, scheduling meetings, replying to emails, saving reference material, etc. And put them on autopilot as much as possible, so they take as little of your time and energy as humanly possible. The ultimate purpose of all this is to free up your time and your energy for the more creative imaginative pursuits that fill you with a sense of joy and fulfillment.

Tiago Forte

07:25

Second, take what works for you and leave the rest. This isn't an ideology where you have to adopt all of it or none of it. I'm sharing the results of over a decade of my own experimenting and fine-tuning, but that does not mean 100% of it will make sense for you. In fact, I'd be surprised and a bit suspicious if 100% of my workflow perfectly applies to you.

Tiago Forte

07:50

Instead of all or nothing, take just the parts that resonate with you and that you sense address the weaknesses or gaps in your own workflow. I promise that adopting even just 1 or 2 or 3 out of the many dozens of practices I'll be showing you can totally revolutionize your clarity and ability to focus. Third, don't run with the crowd. There are parts of what I'll be recommending that may seem weird or out of the ordinary.

Tiago Forte

08:19

They are out of the ordinary because the average person is completely overwhelmed by their digital world. You have to step back and ask yourself, is it more important that I fit in and do what everyone else does, or that I create an environment that actually works for me and supports how I wanna feel every day. This is just a warning that going against the status quo sometimes takes courage, but I can also promise you it is well worth it. I couldn't be more excited to share everything I've learned from a decade plus of my own painstaking trial and error.

Tiago Forte

08:53

It is so gratifying to me to be able to save you some of the pain and frustration that it took me to get here. Ultimately, Productivity is not about checking more boxes. It's about deeply understanding how your mind works, creating an environment that supports that way of thinking, and then finding new ways to grow and thrive every single day. I wish you the best of luck in the journey you're about to begin.