The P.A.R.A. Method: A Universal System for Organizing Digital Information

By Tiago Forte

PART 1| PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5

Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system. One that supported and enhanced the work you do, telling you exactly where to put a piece of information, and exactly where to find it when you needed it.

This system would have to be:

• universal, encompassing any conceivable kind of information from any source
• flexible, able to work with any project or activity you take on, now and in the future
• simple, not requiring any time-consuming maintenance, cataloguing, tagging, or reorganizing beyond a bare minimum
• actionable, integrating seamlessly with task management and project management methods
• cross-platform, able to be used with any application, now existing or yet to be developed
• outcome-oriented, structuring information in a way that supports the delivery of valuable work
• modular, allowing different levels of detail to be hidden or revealed, depending on the needs of the current task
• opportunistic, in the good sense, taking advantage of work already being performed, instead of requiring…