PARA method
Sort every note and file into projects, areas, resources or archives
Four folders, repeated in every place you keep information. Projects hold short efforts with a finish line, Areas the responsibilities that never end, Resources the topics you might want one day, Archives everything now dormant. Placement follows what a note is useful for right now, not which subject it belongs under. That is why the same note moves between folders as your work moves. Tiago Forte built and named the system, and it has spread well past his own students, mostly because setting it up takes under a minute. The reported difficulty is not filing but resisting the urge to grow deeper trees underneath.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Tiago ForteDoes it
Productivity writer · Building a Second Brain
Developed the four-folder system over more than a decade of his own experimentation, teaching thousands of students and coaching professionals, he says. Filing goes by what a piece of information is useful for right now, which project or area or resource, rather than by the subject it sits under.
Source: fortelabs.com: The PARA Method
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under productivity or focus.
- ProtocolFREE, no cost
Environment design
Change the room instead of relying on willpower
On record from 7 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it, 5 recommend it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Time blocking
Give every hour of the workday a job before the day starts
On record from 7 of 62 tracked people: 5 do it, 2 recommend it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Deep work blocks
Long, scheduled, distraction-free sessions on one cognitively hard task
On record from 6 of 62 tracked people: 5 do it, 1 recommends it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Deliberate wandering
Unplanned, inefficient exploration kept on purpose as the counterweight to efficiency
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 recommend it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Digital declutter
A 30-day break from optional tech, then reintroduce deliberately
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 recommend it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Hard thinking before lunch
Book the mentally demanding work for the morning and stop making big calls late in the day
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it
Protocol entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.