Organize Your Digital Life with PARA 

It may be difficult to believe that your complicated digital files can be sorted and stored into just four categories. But by simply organizing your heaps of files online and having all the resources in the right place, you can execute your tasks faster. 

All you need to figure out is where to put everything and how to organize it folder-wise. A perfect organizational system that tells you exactly where to put every piece of data — in a folder or cloud storage drive — and exactly where to find what you need — a document, note or photos — would incredibly be helpful. 

A simple yet flexible system for organizing any type of information across your digital platform is the PARA method, which is based on 4 categories : Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives.  

Whether it’s notes from important meetings, useful online resources, photos of cherished memories, or personal journal entries, this system helps you easily store, locate files and retrieve them in future too. As an ideal organizing tool, it helps you accelerate the completion of tasks and achieve anything you set your mind on.  In this article, we brief you on the PARA method to organize your files online. 

Projects

These are files for the projects you’re actively working on e.g., a webpage design, a research report, a language course or interior design. 

Work Areas

These are the important areas of work and life that require ongoing attention. These might include product details, accounting info, research and development, reporting and more. They can also include your personal documents on medical, investments, properties and more.  

Resources

Then you have resources which are a range of interests or hobbies you wish to learn more about such as recipes, gardening, photography and others. 

Archives

Finally, you have archives which include anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active, but which you want to save for future reference or serve as reminisces. These could be your previous year’s project files or photos of an old trip.  

And that’s it! Four top-level folders — each containing dedicated subfolders that’ll easily have your chunks of files sorted and organized.  

Alvina Clara, Content Writer, emQube