The PARA Method: Simplify, Organize, and Master Your Digital Life

by Tiago Forte

Instead of organizing information according to broad subjects like in school, I advise you to organize it according to the projects and goals you are committed to right now.

Projects are “short-term efforts,”

creativity can’t really be sustained without a sense of motivation.

What does our motivation depend on? Mostly, on making consistent progress. We can endure quite a bit of stress and frustration in the short term if we know it’s leading somewhere.

When you break down your responsibilities into bite-size projects, you ensure that your project list is constantly turning over. This turnover creates a cadence of regular victories that you get to celebrate every time you successfully complete a project.

So much of what we call “organizing” is essentially procrastination in disguise. We tell ourselves we’re “getting ready” or “doing research,” pretending like that means progress.

Before you can create anything new, you have to clear out the old.

The problem with keeping everything is that it quickly starts to consume a resource even more scarce than physical space: your attention.

You can keep everything, but you can’t keep it front and center in your attention. It needs a place to go for safekeeping—one that is secure but completely “out of sight, out of mind” until you need it.

never create an empty folder (or tag, or directory, or other container) before you have something to put in it.

follow the same three steps above with your cloud storage drive, notetaking app, and anywhere else you store information,

Don’t dump new stuff willy-nilly into your shiny new PARA folders, or you’ll quickly find yourself right back in the chaos you had in the first place.

I recommend creating an additional, fifth folder alongside the four we’ve already covered, on each major platform you use (such as your Documents folder, cloud storage drive, and notetaking app) with the title “Inbox.”

The inbox is a temporary holding area where new items accumulate until you have time to put them in their proper place.

I suggest adding the numbers 0–4 at the beginning of the titles for each of the five folders

This keeps them in the right order from most to least actionable when they are sorted alphabetically.

It’s helpful if you can see a folder—on any platform, on any device—and instantly know which of the four main PARA categories it is

The important principle is to separate out whatever is most actionable and timely and give it the majority of your attention,

The Archive should be your starting point any time you launch a new project, do a personal year-end review,

Projects: A Goal with a Deadline My definition of a project is any endeavor that has: A goal that will enable you to mark it “complete” A deadline or timeframe by which you’d like it done

An area of responsibility has: A standard to be maintained An indefinite end date

areas of responsibility in your personal life, like your health, finances, personal development, and relationships,

This is the realm of daily habits, meaningful rituals, and timeless values that transcend any particular project.

Every project typically falls under an area of responsibility.

If you have a project (such as writing a book), but you treat it like an ongoing area, without any particular goal or outcome in mind, it will feel aimless and directionless. Likewise, if you have an area (like maintaining a certain weight), but you treat it like it’s just a onetime project, then even if you succeed in losing the extra weight, you’ll likely revert right back afterward because you didn’t put in place long-term habits.

“Project people” are good at sprints.

“Area people” excel at marathons.

you need both: sprints to ramp up something new, and marathons to sustain it. Projects bring you the novelty and excitement of starting new things, whereas areas bring you the peace of mind and sense of perspective you want at the end of the day whether you succeeded or not.

there is a big difference between things you are directly responsible for and things you are merely interested in. I use uppercase titles for areas and lowercase titles for resources to constantly remind myself that one is more important than the other.

folder for “Spouse” might contain notes on their favorite restaurants, ideas for gifts, or health information you might need in case of an emergency. A folder for “Soccer Coach” might contain drills, practice schedules, and a team roster with contact information. Anything you might need to reference or remember in order to effectively play these roles is worth noting down.

Resources encompass the vast number of things you might be interested in, curious about, or passionate about at any given time.

Areas of responsibility are inherently private. It’s no one else’s business what material you save related to your Health, Finances, Personal Growth, or Kids.

I recommend you think of your resource folders as “shareable by default.”

I notice that even the most organized people often make a fatal error—they use a different organizing system in each and every place where they keep information.

every organizational system has overhead—a certain amount of cognitive effort required to maintain and use

use as many apps as you like, while replicating the same structure across every single one. I recommend doing so down to the exact same spelling, punctuation, and capitalization so that you can mentally transition between platforms as seamlessly as possible.

you should create a folder on any platform only when you have something to put in it.

there is no reason that a given category should have corresponding folders across multiple platforms at all.

The landscape of productivity software is always changing, but that doesn’t mean your organizing methods have to be.

you have to keep the information moving.

The only action I recommend avoiding at all costs is duplication: you never want to have two versions of a file or document, because then you never know which one is the most current.

Knowledge Management is essentially a form of communication.

outcomes you are currently committed to achieving, all in one place. It is an inventory of all the things you’re trying to produce, create, accomplish, or resolve.

prioritize only for the upcoming week.

Which goals or priorities you say are important to you don’t have any projects associated with them?

Which projects you’re spending a lot of time on don’t have any goals

The five steps I’ve just taken you through can become part of a “weekly review.” You can walk through them once a week, or anytime you feel overwhelmed or stretched too thin, and I guarantee you’ll emerge in minutes with a newfound sense of clarity and purpose.

every time you say no to something that is less important, all the time and energy that it was taking up gets freed up for the things that are more important.

three habits that encapsulate everything in this book.