📑 Organize Your Life with PARA - #12

Hey everyone!

I've been reading "Building a Second Brain" by Thiago Forte, and although there's a more extensive course available, the book introduces a straightforward concept for organizing your digital life. This framework can help you sort things both personally and at work, allowing you to take better notes, remember details, boost your creativity, and become more productive.

The framework I'm referring to is "PARA," which stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive. The most crucial aspect of this system is that it should help you find relevant information when you need it. Everything you organize using this method should be actionable information. By actionable, I mean you shouldn't just save things for the sake of saving them; it should be a conscious process where you only capture bits of information (text, image, video, etc.) that are useful for something you're currently working on, studying, or interested in at that moment in your life.

This makes it much easier to decide whether or not to keep something by asking yourself, "What project would this piece of information help with?" "Which area of my life does this information support?" "Is this tool something I can use in the short term?"

Let me explain what each category entails. I use this framework to organize my notes in Apple Notes, after migrating everything from Evernote. However, this framework applies to any note or file management system, whether it's Notion, Google Drive, Bear Notes, Obsidian, etc.

Projects

These are short-term efforts in your personal or work life that you're currently working on. They should have a clear end date. Additionally, projects must have a clear objective. For example:

• Finishing a prototype for an app

• Completing the design for a client's landing page

• Remodeling the kitchen

• Moving to a new house

• Lifting 80 kg in the snatch

Areas

These are long-term responsibilities you want to manage over time, with no clear end date. They should be important enough for you to not want to neglect them while they're in your system. These could be areas where you want to learn something, improve them, or manage them. For instance:

• Growth Marketing

• Product Development

• CrossFit

• Mental Health

• Personal Finances

• Personal Relationships

Resources

These are topics you're interested in, learning about, or might be useful in the future. For example:

• Gardening

• Yoga

• Cooking

• Productivity

• Photography

Archive

Finally, there's the Archive section. This is where you'll store all categories or notes that are no longer active in any of the previous sections but that you want to keep for future reference or search.

Here are some examples:

• Completed or paused projects

• Areas that are no longer relevant to your life

• Resources you're no longer interested in

Your note system should have a categorization with a similar architecture:

Another helpful tip for taking and organizing notes is not to categorize while capturing. I recommend having a folder called "INBOX" or something similar, where you drop everything as you capture it. Later, set aside 15 minutes each day to categorize all notes from your INBOX into one of the four categories. This way, your INBOX will always be empty, and everything will be in its appropriate folder for future reference.

I got this idea from "Getting Things Done" by David Allen, a great resource for managing your time and digital information overload.

I hope this organizational method helps. Remember, you can always make adjustments to find a system that suits your lifestyle. The key is for the system to help you be more efficient with your time, create better things, and reduce mental load. There's no point in overcomplicating a system if it takes more time to maintain than it does to derive value from it.

Why Are MVPs Important in Growth?

Hussam Sufan interviewed me for his blog and newsletter. In the interview, we covered questions like: What are MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) for? Which organizations should have a dedicated MVP area? How does an MVP area coexist with other areas within the organization?

I invite you to read the full interview here: Hussam Sufan's Blog.

🦉 Quote of the Week "When things aren’t going well, we tend to think we are lacking in something. But if we want to change our current situation, we should first part with something before we look to acquire something else. This is a fundamental tenet of simple living. Discard your attachments. Let go of your assumptions. Reduce your possessions. Living simply is also about discarding your physical and mental burdens." — Shunmyo Masuno, The Art of Simple Living

And that's it for today! If you enjoyed this, let me know in the feedback below. If not, tell me as well. :)

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See you next week!