Description:

PARA is an information management system. created by fellow RadReader and productivity guru Tiago Forte. The system is expansive. It enables you to organize anything you create and consume digitally, ranging from:

1. Documents

2. Files

3. Articles

4. Tasks

5. Notes

6. Screenshots

7. Podcasts

8. PDFs

Let’s examine each category:

Projects ———

A series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.

Examples include:

1. Complete app mockup

2. Prepare conference talk

3. Train for 10k

4. Develop a project plan

In his original PARA post, Forte describes the required mindset for projects:

“Projects require you to be laser-focused, to ruthlessly drive toward an outcome, to smash through or circumvent obstacles, to ignore distractions (i.e. people).”

Areas ———

A sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.

Areas are the “grey areas” of our lives and span the more significant priorities of our careers, relationships, and personal development. They’re the tricky “Important, but not Urgent” that don’t really have deadlines, yet are critical to living rich and fulfilling lives.

Examples include:

1. Health

2. Finances

3. Key relationships (spouse, kids, boss)

4. Skills

5. Travel

6. Hobbies

7. Things you own (home, car)

Forte reinforces how tricky it can be to maintain this part of our lives:

On the other hand, areas require mindfulness, balance, flow, and human connection. This is the realm of habits, routines, rituals, and intentional communities. Areas require introspection and self-awareness because determining whether or not you are meeting your standard is an intuitive exercise, not an analytical one.

Resources ———

A topic or theme of interest.

You can think of resources as collections of your ideas and curiosities. They tend to be more passive (and less actionable) yet form the basis of your knowledge base.

Some examples include:

1. Habit formation

2. Wellness

3. Crypto

4. Movie Lists

5. Digital Marketing

Archive ———

Inactive items from the other three categories.

1. Last year’s completed Marathon ✅

2. Side project you’re no longer working on ✅

3. Past client project ✅

4. Topic you’re no longer interested ❎

And here’s a screenshot of my PARA setup in Notion:

It has two sections, first for PROJECT and second for AREA, RESOURCES and ARCHIVE…

To make things ARCHIVE, simply inactive items/ data from the other three categories.

A page for saving Numbers and emails of family & colleagues.

Master Database is to track all four categories.

You can find these pages in this section.

Here’s a Full view of the Template:

Thanks for Visiting… I hope this template makes your life and work more managed and easy as it makes mine. 💗🌒