I have been looking at content in relation to the P.A.R.A. technique and find it interesting.
What is the P.A.R.A. technique? Glad you asked.
P.A.R.A. stands for Projects — Areas — Resources — Archives, the four top-level categories that encompass every type of information you might encounter in your work and life.
The idea is to have four primary categories, where you store everything in. The technique is highly visible on Tiago Forte’s Praxis site. This system is primary for digital information.
Since, most of us lives either on or with our digital data, the technique is highly sought after. Who wouldn’t want to get their data in order?
Defining P.A.R.A.
Projects are those tasks within a series providing a goal or deadline. Another way to define a project is an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.
This aim can be anything from finishing a school assignment to building out a house.
Areas or Area of Responsibility consist those areas you are personally responsible for. First comes to mind are work, family, social life, or side hustles.
Resource contains references, information, or citations to your current interest. These can be links to your books, articles of interest, podcasts, or any number of data pertaining to you current activities.
Archives are those ‘inactive items’ from the prior three. Some will push their finished projects to this category. Others will store information not currently being worked on, or wish to keep it ‘just in case’ they wish to go back to it, when time allows.
Where do I start?
I plan to make some additional post on this topic, as I am currently reviewing content on it myself. For now, I wanted to introduce you to this technique, and provide some context what it is.
Is this GTD?
This reminds me a bit on Get Things Done (GTD) five steps.
The GTD Five Steps are:
- Collect (Capture)
- Process (Clarify)
- Organize
- Review (Reflect)
- Engage (Do)
While Tiago does adopt David Allen’s GTD principles, his adaptive P.A.R.A. method falls in steps 2 and 3, in my opinion.
Get Things Done method helps identify the actionable items, where P.A.R.A. focuses on organizing those items.
Thoughts
While this P.A.R.A. technique is useful, you still need to adopt a digital tool or application to incorporate it. I am currently using Notion.so. However, I have seen videos using Evernote or other online applications.
However, as always, I want to hear your experience. Have you ever seen or heard of this technique before?
Matt Cole has high regard for knowledge share. He has a desire to share critical thinking and information. With a Masters in Information Technology and a wide array of certifications, while not working full-time, he wishes to knowledge share through providing insight, information organization, and critical thinking skills.
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