Building Your Personal Knowledge Library: The PARA method

PARA stands for Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives. It is a quick way to structure your information. It is one of the simplest methods that are available.

How to implement the PARA method?

Take any note-taking app; I use [obsidian](http://obsidian.md) since it gives much flexibility. It supports MD format to write text. There are many alternatives like Notion, Evernote, and OneNote. I saw people using Apple Notes as well for this purpose. The choice is yours.

• Create four folders, namely Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives.
• When you create a new note or piece of content, ask yourself where it fits within these folders.

Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

• Projects: Short-term efforts in your work or life that you’re working on now
• Areas: Long-term responsibility you want to manage over time.
• Resources: Topics that may be useful for you in the future.
• Archives: Things that you achieved, or you don’t want to continue working with them any more.

Example:

• Let’s say you’re working on an application development project. You’ll need to gather a lot of information, designs, and timelines—all of which belong in the Projects folder. Since this is a short-term effort, it’s a good candidate for that space.
• If You want to plan for your retirement in your mid-forties or fifties, you need a financial plan. Information related to this would go into the Areas folder.
• In Resources, you’ll keep the topics you’re interested in or information you think will be useful in the future. You watched a YouTube video, and you found it useful you can keep this in the Resources folder.