Building a Second Brain and The Unfair Advantage

BUILDING A SECOND BRAIN by Tiago Forte offers the intriguing potential to apply “A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential.” Forte is a productivity expert who has worked with numerous corporate clients and he splits this new text into three sections: The Foundation, The Method, and The Shift. He writes in a very conversational tone that reassures while capturing the reader’s attention. Many points are supported with data (e.g., “according to The New York Times, the average person’s daily consumption of information now adds up to a remarkable 34 gigabytes.”) As I was reading, I thought BUILDING A SECOND BRAIN would make a useful “One School, One Book” choice and support much-needed work on helping students become more organized and tech-savvy. For example, Forte is a strong advocate for digital note taking and therefore advocates using apps like Evernote or OneNote which we have been talking about for years. He further suggests organizing saved notes by PARA (Project, Area, Resource, and Archive) and employing CODE (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express). As a list maker and librarian who both juggles numerous requests and curates resources, these habits of personal knowledge management all seem rather intuitive, but Forte does point out some broader aids like a monthly review template. Many of his ideas are explained visually in this 2019 video.

THE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba describes those often-overlooked aspects which could give the reader a competitive edge, particularly in an entrepreneurial, start-up situations. Both Ali, who founded Uhubs, and Kubba, whose TedTalk is here, have significant experience in creating and advising start-ups. Their new text begins by acknowledging that life is unfair and that success is a product of hard work and luck. The next sections describes the MILES framework and encourages readers to perform an audit of certain attributes (Mindset, Money, Intelligence and Insight, Location and Luck, Education and Expertise, plus Status) in order to illustrate “How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed.” Finally, they include several chapters which make up a “The Startup Quick Start Guide.” THE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE feels like a text which should have an accompanying workbook. Of possible interest to those looking to start their own business, I also think that excerpts or summaries might intrigue some of our business students.

Curious? See also other recent titles of interest like Build by Tony Fadell, Atomic Habits by James Clear, or the slightly older Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.