Tiago Forte's Second Brain + AI

Tiago Forte is a productivity consultant and author who runs Forte Labs. He created the Building a Second Brain methodology after developing chronic illness in his twenties forced him to offload his memory to digital tools. His online course has taught over 6,000 students since 2017, and his book became a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Forte’s “Building a Second Brain” sold millions of copies with a simple idea: stop using your brain for storage. Use it for thinking.

The system predates current AI tools. Now there’s an obvious question: where does AI fit in?

Having used PARA for two years and AI tools for one, here’s what I’ve figured out. Some combinations work well. Others are traps.

PARA in 30 seconds

Four folders:

• Projects — stuff with deadlines (launch newsletter, finish report)
• Areas — ongoing responsibilities (health, team management)
• Resources — interesting topics for later (AI research, marketing ideas)
• Archives — inactive stuff

The key insight: organize by actionability, not topic. “Website redesign” is a Project. “Web design” is a Resource. This distinction matters more than it sounds.

CODE: the workflow

Four stages: Capture → Organize → Distill → Express.

Capture is just saving things. Articles, voice memos, random ideas. Don’t organize yet. That’s a different step.

Organize is sorting into PARA folders. Tagging. Linking related notes.

Distill is where most people stop. You’re supposed to progressively compress notes — highlight the important 20%, then highlight within highlights, then write a summary in your own words. It’s tedious. Most people skip it.

Express is shipping something using your notes. Articles, presentations, whatever.

Where AI actually helps

I’ve tried AI at every stage. Here’s what worked:

Capture: AI transcription is genuinely useful. Voice notes → text is seamless now.

Organize: Auto-tagging works okay. Connection suggestions are hit-or-miss — sometimes useful, sometimes noise.

Distill: This is the big one. The tedious summarization work that nobody does? AI handles it well:

Summarize this article:
1. Bold the most important 20%
2. Write a 3-sentence executive summary
3. List 3 actionable insights

Express: Be careful here. AI drafts lack your voice. I use it for structure and first passes, but the actual writing needs to be mine. Otherwise it sounds like… well, like AI.

The traps

Over-organizing: Spending more time filing than creating. PARA’s four folders are meant to prevent this. If you’re debating whether something is a Resource or an Area, you’re overthinking.

AI over-reliance at Express: AI can outline. It can draft. But if you let it write the final version, you lose the thing that makes your work yours. Use AI for scaffolding, not polish.

Capturing without expressing: I have 1000+ saved articles. Most are worthless because I never did anything with them. Forte suggests a 2:1 ratio — for every 2 hours capturing, spend 1 hour creating.

Skipping distillation: Future you won’t re-read 50-page documents. Distill now or accept that you’re just hoarding, not building a second brain.

What I actually do

/Projects
├── Q1-newsletter-launch
└── update-portfolio-site
/Areas
├── health
├── writing
└── career
/Resources
├── ai-research
└── second-brain-articles
/Archives

Weekly: process inbox into PARA folders. AI suggests tags, I approve or correct.

When I save an article worth keeping: immediate AI summarization. 3 key points in my own words. Takes 2 minutes.

When writing something new: search my Resources first, pull in distilled notes as scaffolding, write the actual content myself.

The time math

Writing an article from scratch: 6-8 hours of staring at blank pages.

Writing with a second brain: 2-3 hours. You search your Resources, AI compiles relevant distilled notes, you structure around them, write the connective tissue yourself.

The time savings are real, but only if you’ve been doing the distillation. A thousand unprocessed bookmarks don’t help. Ten well-summarized articles do.

Honest assessment

PARA works. It’s survived years of productivity fads because the core insight is solid: organize by actionability, not topic.

AI amplifies it at exactly the right stage — distillation, the part nobody wants to do. The tedious summarization becomes quick. Notes you’d never process get processed.

But AI doesn’t fix the fundamental challenge: you still have to create things. No tool makes that easy.

Starting point

1. Set up the four PARA folders. Move existing notes for a week before capturing new stuff.
2. Pick 10 articles you’ve saved but never processed. AI-summarize each one. See if it changes how you use them.
3. Write one thing using your notes as scaffolding. Notice whether it’s faster.

If it doesn’t stick after a month, the system isn’t for you. That’s fine too.

Next: Personal AI OS Architecture