Using the PARA Method: how I organize my digital Information

DanielMarch 21, 2023

In my attempt to build a second brain, I've started some while ago to use the PARA method to organize my digital notes. Currently, I am using Evernote as my default note-taking app, but you can do it with many other tools like Notion or even directly a google drive.

PARA is an acronym (yeah, another one .... computers + acronyms = ❤️) and it comes from Projects Areas Resource Archive. The "official documentation" for it is here.

What I like about it is that it has the perfect level of simplicity and effectiveness out of any system I’ve tried.

And it's very action-oriented.

Projects are the most actionable category. Projects like "get a new job" or "redesign your home office". They refer to what is active right now.

If a note does not make it to the Projects section it can go into the Areas of Responsibility. The things that you are responsible for. They are more long-term and ongoing over time.

If not in the Areas folder then it will go to the Resource category which is all kinds of information that you may want to access in the future.

And finally, the Archive category is the least actionable. The info here is anything from the previous three categories that is finished, complete, no longer active, or relevant.

So, you are basically organizing your knowledge so that most of your attention is always going to the most actional category.

If you are interested you can check out this google talk of Tiago Forte or this github repo.

Cheers and happy 🧠 organizing!