date: 2025-02-27 previous note: [[4001 Building Your Second Brain]] related note(s): - tags: #organization #knowledge-management # The PARA Method The PARA Method[2] stands for: - [[4001.1.1 Projects|**Project**]] - Short term efforts in work or life the you are working on now - [[4001.1.2 Areas|**Area**]][16] - Long Term responsibilities you want to manage over time - [[4001.1.3 Resources|**Resources**]][17] - Topics of Interest that may be useful in the future - [[4001.1.4 Archives|**Archive**]][18] - Inactive Items from the other 3 categories Your organizational system needs to save you time, not take it up [[4001 Building Your Second Brain#^6f7845|(19)]]. In order to do this, you need to model your system based on how we actually work as humans. In school you were taught to order items by subject, but that is not how we work in the real world. Items and work crossover each other. You need to organize by project or goal [[4001 Building Your Second Brain#^915196|(20)]] and make them [[4001.1.1.5 Making Projects Manageable|manageable]]. There is no “correct” place to put an item in PARA what matters is your relationship to it, and this change so the time, Irene will move from folder to folder [[4001 Building Your Second Brain#^772d63|(27)]].