The PARA Method
like to use an informal naming convention to make this possible, such as: • Emojis at the beginning of titles for project folders • Capitalized titles for area folders • Uncapitalized titles for resource folders For example, these are immediately recognizable as projects (because they start with emojis):  Create sponsorship package  Write article on new environmental standards  Plan Mexico City vacation These are clearly areas (because they are capitalized): • Professional Development • Financial Management • Travel And these are resources (because they are uncapitalized): • piano songs • slide presentations • video assets
I recommend you do all the upkeep of your PARA system in just five minutes per week. All you need to do is follow these three easy steps: 1. Retitle new items in your inbox 2. Sort new items into PARA folders 3. Update your active projects
Note that you likely have several inboxes you’ll need to do this for, such as: • An inbox you’ve created in your Documents folder (recommended in chapter 4) • An inbox for your cloud storage drive • An inbox in your digital notetaking app
STEP #3: Update Your Active Projects Finally, take a look at your project folders and make changes to reflect what’s happened over the past week. This could include actions such as: • Changing the name of a project to reflect a new scope or direction • Splitting a large project into smaller ones to make it more achievable • Archiving a project that has been completed, put on hold, canceled, or handed over to someone else • Unarchiving a dormant project that has since become active again and moving it back to the Projects folder Before archiving a project, scan it briefly for any material (such as brainstorms, background research, slides, interview notes, etc.) that might be relevant to other pursuits and move these items to the appropriate place within PARA. For example, let’s say you discover a new strategic framework during a client engagement and, once it’s finished, decide you’d like to utilize that knowledge with future clients. You could move that documentation to a new resource folder called “Strategy,” which you’ll be able to refer to again in the future. All you’re doing in this step is changing the makeup of your project folders to accurately reflect whatever has happened in your world recently.
However, there are a few other subtleties you should be aware of. Every project typically falls under an area of responsibility. For example: • Running a marathon is a project, which falls under the area of Health • Publishing a book is a project, which falls under the area of Writing • Saving three months’ worth of expenses is a project, which falls under the area of Finances • Planning an anniversary dinner is a project, which falls under the area of your Spouse Although projects and areas are related, it’s critically important that you distinguish between them. Failing to do so is a root cause of so many frustrations and challenges.
But I also know my tendency is to collect too much and become a “digital hoarder.” I’ve found that I need a constraint to remind me what is worth saving and what isn’t. The word “resources” calls to mind the utility of a piece of information. Instead of asking, “Is this interesting?” which always results in overcollecting, I ask myself, “Is this useful?” That’s a much higher bar and forces me to consider what this piece of information will allow me to do that I couldn’t do otherwise, which problem it could help me solve, or which obstacle it might help me overcome.
Taking into account the importance of utility, resources can also include “assets” such as stock photos, product testimonials, code snippets, typography samples, or a “swipe file,” a common practice from the advertising industry in which copywriters keep a folder full of examples to draw from in their work.
2. If it’s a task that I can complete anytime, it goes in my to-do list app
If it’s text, it goes in my notetaking app (since that offers the best search function by which to find it again)
4. If it’s content that I’ll be collaborating on with others, it goes in my cloud storage drive10
If it can’t go in any of the above locations (because it’s too large or a specialized file type, for example), then it goes in my computer’s file system (the Documents folder)
From AREAS to PROJECTS: If you decide it’s time to level up operations within your organization (which will require a onetime project), the perfect place to start is with any ideas you’ve collected in an “Operations” area folder. New projects often emerge out of existing areas of responsibility.
From AREAS to RESOURCES: Sometimes, you realize that a piece of information you initially thought was relevant only to you (such as a list of event venues in a city) could also provide value to others. Move it from areas to resources, where it will be ready to share.
One final note: though my preferred method is to move notes and files wholesale from one place to another, you actually have four options for how to associate an existing piece of information with a new category: 1. Moving a single item (if only one item is relevant to a new project, for example) 2. Moving a folder full of items (if a whole group of items is relevant) 3. Linking two items together (if you want to keep the original item where it is) 12 4. Tagging items with the same tag (if you want to associate many items with each other without moving them) 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 has to be centered on the needs of the individual, designed primarily to enhance their personal productivity and effectiveness so they are empowered to do the very best work they are capable of. Here are my top four recommendations for how to do that using PARA within teams: 1. Get clear on your organization’s flavor of PARA 2. Train people in how to use PARA 3. Keep only shared projects on shared platforms 4. Encourage a culture of writing
To put it simply: the only way to share knowledge effectively is to create a culture of writing within your team. How do you do that? Here are five ideas that I’ve seen work well: • Set an example: Senior leadership and managers can set an example by regularly sharing their most important ideas and decisions in writing • Offer incentives: Staff at all levels can be rewarded and praised when they take the time to express their thinking in writing • Provide feedback: Direct reports can be offered private feedback on their writing drafts before sharing them more widely • Set aside time for reading: Meetings can begin with “reading time” to emphasize that the context for discussions is best absorbed in written form • Standardize: Adopt a standard term for an internal piece of writing (such as a memo, proposal, one-pager, or article) and create a standard template (such as a Google Doc or Notion page) for doing so
Your Project List is a list of the 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. It’s like a to-do list, but on a bigger scale and longer time horizon so you can tell where you’re headed. It’s like a list of goals, but more practical and rooted in the here and now.
write down anything that comes to mind when you read the following questions, whether they are work-related or personal: • What’s currently worrying you? • What problem is taking more mental bandwidth than it deserves? • What needs to happen that you’re not making consistent progress on? • What actions are you already taking that are part of a bigger project you’ve not yet identified? • What would you like to learn, develop, build, express, pursue, start, explore, or play with? • Which skills would you like to learn and which hobbies would you like to start? • What kind of project could advance your career or make your life more fun or interesting?
Take a minute and add a goal for each project on your list in parentheses. For example: • Project: Visit the doctor about back pain (Goal: Back pain is resolved and I can sleep through the night without discomfort) • Project: Plan off-site agenda for staff retreat (Goal: Team is clear about what needs to be accomplished and next steps are assigned) • Project: Develop sales campaign with Linda (Goal: Sales campaign is approved by exec team and budget is allocated)
in the marginshould have a gol note for ceach project
You can add dates to each item on your list by adding “by ...” at the end. For example: • Project: Visit the doctor about back pain by Friday, Feb. 24 (Goal: Back pain is resolved and I can sleep through the night without discomfort) • Project: Plan off-site agenda for staff retreat by end of Q3 (Goal: Team is clear about what needs to be accomplished and next steps are assigned) • Project: Develop sales campaign with Linda by next executive meeting (Goal: Sales campaign is approved by exec team and budget is allocated)
You aren’t very likely to make progress on every single project on your list in a given week, or even most of them. The key here is to prioritize only for the upcoming week. For just next week, which projects should be taking up most of your mental bandwidth? Put those at the top. Which ones should be taking up little or none of your bandwidth next week? Put those at the bottom.
Reevaluate Your Project List Now that you have a full inventory of everything you’re committed to this week, you have the chance to ask some difficult but incredibly illuminating questions of yourself: • Which goals or priorities you say are important to you don’t have any projects associated with them? (These are called “dreams,” since they aren’t likely to happen in the near term.) • Which projects you’re spending a lot of time on don’t have any goals associated with them? (These are called “hobbies,” because without a goal in mind, they are likely “just for fun.”) • Which projects can you cancel, postpone, reduce in scope, delegate, outsource, or clarify? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with dreams and hobbies, by the way. They are just as important and necessary parts of our lives, but don’t confuse them with your projects and areas.
The five steps I’ve just taken you through can become part of a “weekly review.”
Often, my coaching clients’ takeaway from performing this exercise is that they are trying to do too much. Seeing the range of their existing commitments all in one place, they realize that they don’t need another productivity app or technique—they need to say no to things that don’t matter.
This may be a strange thing to say in a book about organizing, but organizing by itself doesn’t add value. It has no inherent worth unless it puts you in a state of mind for taking effective action. This is why PARA is a minimalistic approach—it opts for little “nudges” to move items from one place to another as your needs change. It is a “bottom-up” method, responding to changes in your life organically. Instead of spending a lot of effort organizing your digital information “just in case” you need it someday, wait until your needs become crystal clear and then organize your notes and files “just in time” for the project you’re working on right now. This is how you avoid doing a lot of up-front work of questionable value, saving your energy for the moment when you know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.
PARA requires precision in only one place: the definition of projects. Everything else is not only allowed to remain somewhat messy; that’s how it should be. Highly precise systems require a lot of effort to maintain, which means most aspects of your digital world should remain loose and informal by default.
This is why I don’t agree with a lot of the recommendations made by organizing gurus. For example, I don’t recommend: • Creating an internal structure inside folders • Using a standardized template for the contents of notes or documents • Creating a hierarchy of subfolders within subfolders many levels deep • Using databases or other formal methods for organizing personal information
In order to focus, we need to step away from the incessant notifications of the Internet and withdraw to a private, secluded place. If you happen to have access to a log cabin hidden deep in the woods, then I’m envious of you. For the rest of us, that private place can be simply a different software program than the one we use to interface with the outside world. When I need to focus, I turn off the Wi-Fi. I know I can’t remain dedicated to one task with an ocean of information beckoning to me from just the other side of a browser window. Each time I sit down to work, I choose a task from my to-do list, turn on “airplane mode” on all my devices, and don’t go back online until it’s finished.
Collecting information is easy, and we’ve seen that filing it away isn’t that hard either. But if you stop there, all this effort amounts to hoarding. Value doesn’t come from the inputs; it comes from your outputs, bearing your signature and style.
To take advantage of this fact, I recommend choosing what to save in your PARA system based on what resonates with you. What moves you? What makes the hair stand up on your arm, gives you goose bumps, makes your heart beat faster, or fills you with a sense of wonder? That is the stuff creativity is made of, and therefore worth saving.
Your projects exist on a short-term horizon that will play out in the coming hours or days. Your areas of responsibility and resources play out on a medium-term horizon over weeks and months. Your archives are more likely to be useful on a long-term horizon of months or years.
occasionally, such as during a weekly review, it’s wise to elevate your perspective and think about the long term. This is when the content you’ve collected in your areas of responsibility and resources becomes valuable. At these times of deeper reflection, ask yourself these questions: • What is the standard (of quality or performance) I’m committed to in each of my areas of responsibility? • Am I currently meeting that standard? • If not, are there any new projects, habits, routines, or other practices I can start, stop, or change? • Are there any resources that would enable me to do so? When evaluating your resources, ask yourself questions like: • Are there any new interests or passions I’d like to pursue more seriously? • Are there any curiosities or questions I’d like to start exploring? • Are there any hobbies or pursuits I’ve allowed to stagnate that I’d like to reboot? By separating out the information in your life according to when it will be needed, PARA gives you a sense of perspective appropriate to whichever time horizon is calling for your attention.
When it comes to your finances, there are serious consequences to declaring bankruptcy. But not in the digital world. There is no downside to archiving everything because it will all remain available in the future.
There is a common temptation to set up PARA to resemble the life you wish you had, instead of the life you actually have. Don’t create a bunch of aspirational projects and goals that are merely wishful thinking. When you have the courage to tell the truth about what is truly occupying your attention right now, and make PARA reflect that, the power really begins to flow.