教育前沿|
You have projects you’re actively working on – short-term efforts (in your work or personal life) that you take on with a certain goal in mind. For example:
You have areas of responsibility – important parts of your work and life that require ongoing attention. These might include:
Then you have resources on a range of topics you’re interested in and learning about, such as:
Finally, you have archives, which include anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active, but you might want to save for future reference:
And that’s it! Four top-level folders – Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives – each containing a small number of subfolders dedicated to each active project, area of responsibility, resource, and archive in your life. Do you see the problem? Look again closely. Not a single item on this list is a project, according to our earlier definition. Does “strategic planning” ever end for good? Is there ever a time when you can permanently cross off “vacations” from your list? Hopefully not! Every item on this list is, in fact, an area of responsibility. This might seem like semantics, but it’s anything but. I’ve learned that no matter how smart or driven you are, there are two critical things you cannot do until you break down your areas of responsibility into specific projects. 1. You Can’t Truly Know the Extent of Your CommitmentsOne of the most common complaints I hear from people is that they “have no bandwidth.” And I sympathize – how much of the time does it feel like you have way too much on your plate? But as long as you view your work through the lens of areas, you’ll never quite know just how much is on your plate. Looking at the list above, how much of a workload does “Hiring” represent? It could be anything from a part-time hire every 6 months to filling 50 positions this quarter. There’s simply no way to know at a glance, and that uncertainty will manifest itself as every area feeling more burdensome than it really is. Imagine if you identified each of the projects within Hiring, and kept that list in front of you every day. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to tell how much there is left to do, and what you should do next? For example: No matter how wide-ranging your responsibilities are, you can always break them down into smaller projects. And you must, if you want to know whether you’re actually making progress toward your goals. Getting Organized For the Life You Want to Lead Using PARA is not just about creating a bunch of folders to put things in. It is about identifying the structure of your work and life—what you are committed to, what you want to change, and where you want to go. It is about organizing information in such a way that it supports and calls into being the future life you want to lead. So much of what we call “organizing” is essentially procrastination in disguise. We tell ourselves we’re “getting ready” or “doing research,” pretending like it’s progress. When in reality, we are seeking any little thing we can polish or tidy to avoid having to face the task we are dreading. PARA cuts through this facade, giving us a method for organizing anything that is so radically simple, there is no excuse and nothing left to do except the next essential step. It is a minimalistic way to add just enough order to your environment that you have the clarity to move forward, and no more. There are other more complex, sophisticated, and specialized ways of organizing information out there, but PARA is the only one that stands the test of time because it gives you more time than it takes. Follow us for the latest updates and insights around productivity and Building a Second Brain on X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And if you’re ready to start building your Second Brain, get the book and learn the proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential. |
