Navigating Personal Knowledge Management and Digital Fitness

a talk with Tiago Forte on Digital Fitness. Hosted by Lykle de Vries, an Mark Meinema.

Tiago Forte is one of the participants in the first European PKM Summit. To find out more: go to PKMSummit.com

Transcript

(upbeat music)

Lykle de Vries
- We're about to start a conversation that Mark and I have been looking forward to for a while. We're gonna talk with Tiago Forte. Tiago, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Tiago Forte
- My pleasure.

Lykle de Vries
- The reason that we're talking to you is because your book, "Building a Second Brain" was released in the Netherlands in a Dutch version recently. It's Mark's book. It actually has the same title. It's also called "Building a Second Brain" because there wasn't a good Dutch translation. And your book has been buzzing around in our circles, I should say, for a while yet. So we're very happy to be able to tell everybody that there's a Dutch version too that they can read if they don't like the English version. But a little bit of background, I'm not sure how much you know about the Netherlands. We're just this tiny little country on the other side of the ocean. We actually do have quite a digital society here. For instance, I think we're the top country for LinkedIn usage. We have a lot of early adopters. And as it so happens, we also had a very lively life hacking scene 10 years ago. And Martijn Aslander, who's also co-founder of Digital Fitness with Mark Meinema, was involved with the life hacking movement in the Netherlands then. They invited David Allen over to the Netherlands and he actually ended up living here. And he opened the first month of Digital Fitness that was organized last year. So we were very happy with that. And there's a little bit about that I'm gonna tell you in a bit. But just as for an introduction, Mark here and Martijn co-founded Digital Fitness about two years ago, after writing a book that basically concluded that knowledge work as we know it in the Netherlands is kind of broken because we're not doing it right. We actually do not work well at all in the digital realm. And when we came across the stuff that you were doing, we were instantly interested. And in the Dutch version of your book, Martijn actually wrote a quote in which he states that he thinks your book is even more important and will bring about even more than David Allen's book, Getting Things Done, for a while back. So there's a bit to live up to perhaps, but it just goes that we're really happy to be able to talk to you. And just to complete the introduction, maybe Mark, you can do a little overview of Digital Fitness, what kind of thoughts are behind it and what the five pillars of it amount to so that Tiago has a bit of a reference.

Marc Meinema
- Yeah, I'll do that, thanks. So Digital Fitness has, in our view, a really strong link with building a second brain because basically what we think is that having this second brain, having this personal system for personal knowledge management is sort of what the most important thing that you can do with computers, for most knowledge workers at least. That's why we were elated when the book came out in the English version, because I bought it on the pre-sale. So I was so happy when that book came out. The reason for that is that we find that, as Lekla already referred to, that our work is basically broken. So we got all these computers, all this fancy stuff, and at some point we were promised that our life would be boring because computers would automate the crap out of everything. And the reality is that we have sort of a relationship problem with our digital tools. And what we try to teach people is not to know all the knobs and buttons on computers, because that's not important. It's about your effectiveness as a person and how a computer can help you be effective in whichever way you want to be effective. And we teach people, first of all, to be aware of what is out there digitally. So what kind of tools there are, what kind of new tools are coming at you. Some kind of digital hygiene. So we get crap loads of information fired at us with almost no filter at all. Like we used to have lots of filters, but one by one they sort of went away and we have to filter ourselves. So now we end up with email inboxes with 200 emails a day. And we're sort of busy doing the busy work of sorting emails and not with our actual work. So that's a problem. So yeah, filtering the stream of information, then digital skills, because you really need to know the tools that you want to use to do anything with the computers. And then the fourth element is personal knowledge management. There's a lot of investment that has been done in knowledge management as a whole. So on an organizational level, but yeah, this is not something I have to explain to you. That has no relationship with you and your own biological brain. So you need something that is for yourself. And then the fifth element of digital fitness is using your digital tools for personal growth. And that for some people that's a step counter or something like that. For me, that is becoming really good friends with my personal calendar. So my ADHD head can be on time everywhere. It's different for everyone, but you can actually use your tools for your personal growth. And basically we're doing sort of relationship therapy for people between their computers and themselves. So that's sort of what digital fitness is all about in a nutshell. And actually we see a personal knowledge management bit as one of the most important, if not the most important part because people, they don't get stuff done. They're not able to find their information or they take lots of time to find stuff. So when the moment you need it has passed, then the information is found or even later than that. So yeah, that's why we were so happy with the book because we actually, when we do courses digital fitness, we send them the book. So we send them "Building a Second Brain" when we get around to personal knowledge management because it is such a good, it's not like a theoretical description. I read it really quickly because it's also a story about how you personally from a need to know all this information, used  these tools to actually learn stuff and to get stuff done. So it's not just like, it's not for digital hoarding.

Lykle de Vries
- Thing is, Netherlands is just a small country where approximately 17, maybe 18 million people now and 4 million of those people could be categorized as knowledge workers. Basically, mostly sitting behind a desk with a computer, not creating stuff with their bare hands, but using their brains, their networks, their knowledge to be valuable and create value for others. And as I talk to people about managing all the information, one of the items that comes up quickly and when this leads into our first question, I think is, yeah, but that's mine and that's not my employer's information. There's this thing about the organization in which you work that has a certain amount of knowledge and needs and there's this stuff that you see as your own. But I think the fact of the matter is that my brain and my connections are different and have a value other than Mark's and yours. And the organization also benefits from that. So how, if we're talking about personal knowledge management, do you make a distinction between private and professional?

Tiago Forte
- Yeah, yeah, wow. Good place to start. I'm glad we're among kindred spirits that spend as much time obsessing about these things as I do. Yeah, let's see. So I only make the distinction to the extent that I need to just visualize in my second brain system. Over here are work projects, just to the side, like right next door are my personal projects. Here are my work areas, here are my personal areas. So it's quite, in a way, a small distinction. I'm using the same methodology in the same apps, pretty much in the same ways, same categories. I just like to have just a little bit of distinction so that I know like from eight to four, I'm just looking at this part of the list. And after that, when it's family time, personal time, home time, I'm looking at that part of the list. But I do think-

Lykle de Vries
- So you're your own boss.

Tiago Forte
- Yeah, I think, I was just gonna say, it really depends on each person's relationship between their work and their personal life. For me, they're quite integrated. I'm here in my office, which is the garage, which is about 15 feet from the house. And so geographically, physically, psychologically, emotionally, those things for me are close because I'm self-employed. But I see many cases where people make a bigger distinction between those two kinds of information depending on their situation.

Lykle de Vries
- Do you have any feedback from people that work in larger organizations where they have information management department?

Tiago Forte
- Yeah, I-

Lykle de Vries
- How do they handle it?

Tiago Forte
- Yeah, this is the other distinction. So for one person, you have their personal versus their professional information. But then there's another distinction between like personal knowledge management and then like organizational knowledge management, which are almost completely sePARAte disciplines. I really try to make this distinction. I always am sure to use PKM, not KM. I always try to, even usually when people ask me a question like this, I say, "Look, I never really worked in a large organization. "I never really had that experience. "So I'm gonna limit my comments "to just the individual level." That said, now that I have developed this methodology and written the book, now I am starting to be brought into organizations and teams to consult and train different people. So I'm starting to have...