CODE + PARA: A System to Organize Your Digital Life

In the book Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte recommends the following system to organize one’s digital life: CODE / PARA. CODE stands for Collect, Organize, Distill, and Express. Within the organization component, PARA stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives.

COLLECT: this focuses on collecting information and knowledge that you consume.

ORGANIZE: once you have information and knowledge, you need a structure to organize and keep the collected information. This is where the PARA system comes in.

• Projects: tasks related to your goal.
• Areas: this refers to spheres of activity with a standard to be maintained over time
• Resources: this is where you keep things of interest relating to your project.
• Archives: where you place any items you no longer need.

More about PARA can be found here.

DISTILL: This refers to progressive summarization

EXPRESS: In this step, you make the best use of what you have collected.

Read more about these systems here.