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

by Tiago Forte

the ultimate system for organizing your life is one that is actionable.

projects you’re actively working on—short-term efforts (whether in your work or personal life) that you take on with a certain goal in mind.

areas of responsibility—important parts of your work and life that require ongoing attention more broadly.

The system you use to organize information has to be so simple that it frees up your attention, instead of taking more of it. Your system must give you time, not take time.

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.

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. Which brings us to our second problem: without a list of individual projects, you can’t connect your current efforts to your long-term goals.

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.

Using PARA is not just about creating a bunch of folders to put things in. It is about identifying the structure of your work and life—what you are committed to, what you want to change, and where you want to go. It is about organizing information in such a way that it supports and calls into being the future life you want to lead.

select all the existing files, documents, folders, notes, etc. in your Documents folder (which may number in the hundreds or even thousands or more) and move them all at once into a new folder called “Archive [Today’s date].”