para
When I saw the words "a productivity system for organising your life" I was skeptical. I immediately rolled my eyes actually, rather assuming that the YouTube video in question would be a gratuitous plug for some new app. I've done that all too many times. From dietting to dating, there's an £11.99 per month app for everything that's new, sexy and sellable. I've found most of them turn out to be thoroughly underwhelming at best, or at worse blatant false-advertising. This time however, I was wrong.
The video was my first introduction to PARA, a platform-agnostic methodology that can be applied to any physical or digital notebook. All it takes is an investment in time, an afternoon or so, to create your system and sort all your notes into four simple categories. I thought "fuck it, let's give this a shot."
P for Projects. These are things you're actively working on right now. This can be anything from actual projects, to things in your life that you wouldn't normally even consider to be projects at all. My projects right now are: Renovations, AZ-900, Glasgow Pride, New Job, Kavos, Scout/Explorer Camp, Tenerife, Low Waters Community Group and 112th Migration and Website.
A for Areas. These are things you're responsible for, either permanently or over a long period of time. This is where I put all things "life admin", such as Health, Food Shop, Pay, Finances, Personal, Scouting, Christmas and Writing.
R for Resources. This is where you keep ideas, links, quotes, content recommendations and anything else you're interested in or think you might need in the future. This is my least-developed section right now but it's also the section that's likely to become the most detailed over time. My Resources section contains Adopting, Azure, Check Lists, Purpose, Foreverhome, Pride and Scouting.
A for Archives. This is the final resting place for any completed or inactive items from the other three categories. I use this like the Done section of a Kanban board. My completed items since I've started using this system are Module A 23, Badge Inventory, Edinburgh Pride 2023, London 2023 and Scout Camp 2023.
The purpose of PARA is to give you easy access to everything that's going on in your life using a simple and searchable structure. In other words, it's a second brain. If you're a business or even a professional individual and you want something done properly but with little output from yourself, you outsource the effort to someone else. If you're someone who forgets anything that you don't write down, then PARA is a great way of outsourcing some brain power!
Granted, it might sound daft. I thought I had a pretty good system already and I was pretty skeptical about whether the time spent sourcing my notes (of which there were a lot!) would be worth the effort. But credit where credit's due, it was definitely worth it.
PARA has helped me, particularly in the past few months, run with multiple concurrent projects, both personal and professional, all at once without ever feeling like I was loosing a handle on any of them. It's lifted such a weight off my scatter-brained mind and I'm feeling much better for it too! Try it out, it's an easier life - for free!
~ Aedan.