Intermediate packets
Finish one small reusable piece per work session, not the whole project
Rather than pushing an entire project along at once, each work session ends with one completed chunk: a meeting agenda, a set of research notes, a single slide, an outline. File each chunk somewhere findable. The next job that needs something like it then pulls it out again. Small units fit whatever time you actually have on a given day, and they draw feedback long before a finished draft would. Forte coined the term and treats the saved packets as material to pull from the next time a similar need comes up.
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Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Tiago ForteRecommends
Productivity writer · Building a Second Brain
Coined the term for the small reusable chunks a project breaks into: notes from a team meeting, a list of research findings, a slide deck. Instead of trying to move a whole project at once, he advises ending each work session, whether it ran fifteen minutes or three hours, by finishing one packet and saving it for reuse.
Source: fortelabs.com: Building a Second Brain, the definitive introductory guide
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