The Heart is the Bottleneck: Praxis Volume 3

Praxis #3

by Tiago Forte

The Heart is the Bottleneck is an exploration of personal growth through the eyes of a productivity expert. It includes 18 in-depth essays written by Tiago Forte, covering diverse topics related to personal and professional effectiveness. From note-taking and writing, to creativity and curation, to being a digital nomad and working with a virtual assistant, and many more. Tying together these topics is the theme of personal growth – how to tap into the power of our emotions and intuition to produce more creative and impactful work. Tiago continues his work seeking the edge of human potential, by examining how self-awareness and emotional intelligence help us reach it. Through personal experiences, extensive research, and unique thought experiments that span many fields, The Heart is the Bottleneck provides a blueprint for personal growth that is practical and achievable, instead of mystical. It lays out a series of concrete skills that anyone can master to tap into their creative potential and confront their greatest challenges with confidence.

Genres: Productivity, Self Help, Business

239 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 24, 2020

About the author

Tiago Forte is one of the world’s foremost experts on productivity and has taught thousands of people around the world how timeless principles and the latest technology can revolutionize their productivity, creativity, and personal effectiveness.

He has worked with organizations such as Genentech, Toyota Motor Corporation, and the Inter-American Development Bank, and appeared in a variety of publications, such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Harvard Business Review. Find out more at Fortelabs.com.

Reviews

[Ryan Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

In fairness, Tiago leveraged this as a lead magnet for his list and I picked it up as part of a promo in which the kindle version was free. I'm a big fan of his work so jumped at the opportunity to deep dive some of his thoughts/work/guides. As such, it's probably not fair to review it as you would a traditional book as it's really a series of 18 essays.

As you would expect with 18 essays, some where great and resonated and others were fine, but less applicable to where I'm at in life. I personally got a lot out of the writing and note-taking essays; as well as, the creativity and curation essays. (These are areas of my life that are relatively "dialed in," but where Tiago is truly next level.)

The personal growth section provided more insights than I anticipated. The practical guides were either things I have already dialed in or things I wasn't interested in and the future speculation, while interesting and well-written

Early in the book he notes that the essays are spread across five primary themes. I wish that the book itself wouldn't kept the essays in order based on the themes. It was bit jarring jumping around.

I also believe that taking the time to provide a bit more context/connective tissue really takes this book from a 3.2-ish to a 4+. I took a fair amount of notes and I'm looking forward to reviewing. If those notes/takeaways end up having a big, lasting impact I'll come back and add another star.

[Dave Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiago Forte collects 18 essays from his popular Praxis blog on productivity for this new e-book. He shares his insight and research into personal growth, creativity and how we can use a wide variety of techniques to improve ourselves. It’s a quick read and with a lot of great advice and thinking.

My favorite quote:

“We blame others for things that happened in the past, making our case look as plausible and sympathetic as possible. We maintain lists of all the things our parents, our ex-s, our former friends, and our ex-bosses did so, so wrong. We collect mountains of evidence supporting these judgments. But we are always innocent in our stories, victims of their inexcusable behavior.”

[Marek · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The only way to escape the tsunami of information overload is by making intentional decisions about what to pay attention to, and what to ignore.”

— The Heart is the Bottleneck: Praxis Volume 3 by Tiago Forte
http://a.co/72OLCIl

This book is definitely worth to pay attention. Not every article caught my heart (cuz it may be a bottleneck :)) but some articles are great, mostly this about notes taking and best practice. However it is a collection of articles I missed somehow a connection between them 🤷‍♂️

[J.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have gone 2.5. Some interesting stuff in here but the blow by blow of the landmark Ed stuff and the other self help seminar (VIEW was the acronym but I can’t recall the name of the seminar) was lost on me. Maybe interesting for others. The VA tips were solid but basic management principles.

[Ghazwan Abdulla Hasan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many new ideas in this book, but for me, it is advertising to his blogs and courses much more, Tiago Forte is a great guy and did lots as productivity but I expect much more this book

[Bálint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some essays were irrelevant to me, but the majority is a great read.