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.