There are two significant problems with our primary brain:
First, are we drowning in the chaos of too many thoughts and ideas?
They swirl around in our heads like leaves caught in a windstorm, making it difficult to focus on anything.
Second, Memory slips are often a source of frustration, especially when remembering essential things. The human brain has a limited capacity for recall – but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Trying too hard to remember something can work against us, creating a mental block that prevents the successful retrieval of information.
We often need to remember how much of our digital life is stored in our phones, laptops, and the cloud. I thought there had to be an easier way to keep, organize and quickly access all of the information I was gathering and coming across daily. With today’s cutting-edge technologies, all those messy ideas can be tamed and organized so you can finally focus and get things done.
Here, we’ll explore how creating an external repository for your thoughts and project details can help creative people take control of their mental clutter – giving them the power to conquer the world!
The good news is that you don’t have to suffer anymore! A few months ago, I learned about the book Building a Second Brain (BASB) by Tiago Forte, which introduced me to the method to organize my digital life and unlock my creative potential. Doing it was like getting a superpower because the BASB provided me the means to take control of my digital environment and make positive changes in my life. It was a revolutionary idea for me.
The Projects-Based Structure proposed in the book is called PARA, which consists of four main folders: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive.
The Projects folder stores all your current projects and any future projects you plan on pursuing. The Areas folder contains a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time, like health or career development topics. The Resources folder includes helpful information on a specific topic or theme of ongoing interest like Product Management, Habit formation, and Project Management. Finally, the Archive folder contains any finished projects or issues that are no longer relevant but might still be helpful later. It could be resources that you are no longer interested in.
I also implemented this new mantra for note-taking; whenever I found something interesting online or had an idea worth exploring further, I saved it in a relevant PARA folder. This allowed me to refer back to these notes when needed without searching through endless documents and folders trying to find them again.
If you’re interested in reframing your digital life with the PARA system, there are several steps you need to take first to achieve great results with this method:
- Assess your current state of digital life;
- Choose the right organizational system and productivity tool for you
- Brainstorm ways to make notes as useful as possible for your future self;
- Finally, develop habits that will help keep your digital life organized over time.
Also published here.