Top all-time · #1515
Forte Labs
Company blog · fortelabs.co/blogproductivitywriting
Forte Labs is the company blog at fortelabs.co, writing about productivity and writing. Since 2016, 48 different Hacker News readers have linked it 63 times, most often “The PARA Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (26) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Forte Labs posts for the PARA method for organising digital information and for Zettelkasten and note-taking advice. Commenters also cite Tiago Forte's ideas as well thought out.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 26 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
We help people leverage technology to realize the full potential of their knowledge. What’s your potential? Take our quiz and find out.
Most-linked posts?
- The PARA Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information13 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2020-03-03
- How to Take Smart Notes5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-03-03
- Building a Second Brain: An Overview (2020)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-06-02
- One-Touch to Inbox Zero (2015)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-19
- A Complete Guide to Tagging for Personal Knowledge Management2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-10
- /blog2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-09-03
- /blog/p-a-r-a-ii-operations-manual/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-11
What Hacker News says?
Anecdotal disagree here. I have a system that would probably be deemed complicated by anyone that would look at it (even more so than the OP article). While I wouldn't consider myself the most successful person, I've got a lot done, and I attribute a lot of it to my system, notes, and organization. The system wasn't immediately complicated either, it has been developed and refined over 10 years to suit my needs. And…
Comment linking /blog/basboverview/
on “Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead”Submitted Mise-en-place for knowledge workers as a story · 294 points
HN discussionThis is the area I've been eyeing for a while. I strongly agree with your "accrete, don't mutate" approach. Reduction via highlighting / summarizing is also important, but the default copy-paste and overwrite workflow of many systems means you lose so much context via destruction and mutation. Yes, restate and re-express ideas, but that should add to or shadow previous ideas, not destroy them. I want to make somethi…
Comment linking /blog/para/
on “Ask HN: What you up to? (Who doesn't want to be hired?)”Submitted The PARA Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information as a story · 206 points
HN discussionTiago Forte has a lot of thoughts on this topic and a partialy free/paid blog: https://www.fortelabs.co/ I'm not affiliated in any ways but his ideas a really well thought out and apparently thoroughly tested with clients.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?”Submitted The punk strategy guide to the logical thinking process (2019) as a story · 88 points
HN discussion> These categories are all nested. Tasks are nested under Projects which fall under Areas which fall under Resources, with Archives serving as the catch-all category. This does not match my understanding of PARA as described by Tiago. [0] These are not a straight-line "flat" nesting, there's some branches. Areas are at the top, they represent responsibilities, have a broad scope, and undefined/unknowable end date. B…
Comment linking /blog/basbpodcast
on “How to build a second brain as a software developer”Submitted Artificial Time as a story · 43 points
HN discussion> These categories are all nested. Tasks are nested under Projects which fall under Areas which fall under Resources, with Archives serving as the catch-all category. This article got me reading about PARA. But it seems like this sentence is very much the opposite of what the creator of PARA says to do. Sounds like there shouldn't be any nesting of categories: https://fortelabs.co/blog/p-a-r-a-ii-operations-manual/
Comment linking /blog/p-a-r-a-ii-operations-manual/
on “How to build a second brain as a software developer”Submitted The Rise of the Full-Stack Freelancer as a story · 36 points
HN discussionThis seems too heavyweight to me, specifically step 3 with all the data structures and templates. There's just no way capturing all that metadata is going to pay off for me. I see it as: 1) define your basic structure for capture (I also like PARA[1]) 2) invest in the tools (for me, emacs/org-mode combined with the BrainTool browser extension - disclosure I built it[2]) 3) understand your inflows and workflow. 4) ju…
Comment linking /blog/para/
on “How to build a second brain as a software developer”Submitted Science Fiction Books I’ve Read (2018) as a story · 32 points
HN discussionThe author's PARA method for organizing / structuring digital info is helping me a lot. It gives me a solid bedrock. https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/
Comment linking /blog/para/
on “Mise-en-place for knowledge workers”Submitted The Para Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information as a story · 6 points
HN discussionhaven't seen anyone recommend this yet so I will toss in a link to PARA: https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/ You want a system simple enough to remember, as well as all these other properties (quoting Tiago here): - universal, encompassing any conceivable kind of information from any source - flexible, able to work with any project or activity you take on, now and in the future - simple, not requiring any time-consuming…
Comment linking /blog/para/
on “Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?”Submitted The Body Keeps the Score as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThis is one of the best article about this topic [1]. Here is the best advice I took seriously: "Organize your notes by context, not by topic" [1] https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/
Comment linking /blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/
on “Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?”Submitted A Complete Guide to Tagging for Personal Knowledge Management as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMemory is fundamentally limited anyway. Unless you're going to set up an Anki deck for your Zoom meeting notes, it's unrealistic to try to remember action points from every Zoom call we're on. The brain is an efficient machine, and it will naturally remember things that come up often enough. It works quite well on its own. I don't think I've ever sat down to try to remember how to write a for loop in whatever my pre…
Comment linking /blog/knowledge-building-blocks-the-new-meaning-of-notes/
on “Are we losing our ability to remember?”Submitted Productivity for Precious Snowflakes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI found Dendron via HN a few months ago and absolutely love it. I was hemming and hawing with my Dendron file structure until I found the PARA method (in a Dendron tutorial): https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/ . I love that the dots in Dendron file names (e.g. resource.orgs.pacific-energy-center) lets me avoid the awkwardness of folders while still having hierarchical organization. I move around and make changes fast w…
Comment linking /blog/para/
on “Show HN: Dendron – fast open-source note-taking in VSCode”Submitted Forte Shelter as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat's explained in part 2: https://fortelabs.co/blog/p-a-r-a-ii-operations-manual/
Comment linking /blog/p-a-r-a-ii-operations-manual/
on “The PARA Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information”Submitted Progressive Summarization a Practical Technique for Designing Discoverable Notes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI got curious, is this the one? https://fortelabs.co/blog/the-one-touch-guide-to-doing-a-wee...
Comment linking /blog/the-one-touch-guide-to-doing-a-weekly-review/
on “The PARA Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information”Submitted The Para Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information as a story · 3 points
HN discussionA system needs a filter (what is allowed in) and then you need time to work that system, which can include sending things into downstream systems. The important thing is that then those downstream systems also need filters and also need to have time for working on them (and maybe further downstream systems). If you just send them into a downstream system (like a bookmark that you never use) then they will just pile…
Comment linking /blog/one-touch-to-inbox-zero/
on “Ask HN: How can I stop my inbox/wishlist/bookmarks/tabs/todos from growing?”Submitted How to Choose a Digital Notes App as Your Second Brain as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe book deal was signed Apr 14 with Atria Books which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I couldn't find any info on an expected publication date. https://fortelabs.co/blog/book-deal-for-building-a-second-br...
Comment linking /blog/book-deal-for-building-a-second-brain/
on “Illustrated Notes for “Building a Second Brain””Submitted Building a Second Brain: An Overview (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
