P.A.R.A.
Fleeting- Référence externe : https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/
P.A.R.A. stands for Projects — Areas — Resources — Archives, the four top-level categories that encompass every type of information you might encounter in your work and life.
project is “a series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.
area of responsibility is “a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.”
resource is “a topic or theme of ongoing interest.
Archives include “inactive items from the other three categories.”
Projects vs. Areas of Responsibility
I’ve come to believe that even the smallest confusion between these two categories is a deeply rooted cause of many personal productivity problems.
project has a goal to be achieved
project has a goal to be achieved — a discrete event that will happen, allowing this item to be completely checked off and struck from the list. And this goal is supposed to take place by a specific moment in time. It has a deadline or timeframe, whether externally or self-imposed.
area of responsibility, by contrast, has a standard to be maintained. And there is no end date or final outcome. Your performance in this area may wax and wane over time, but the standard continues indefinitely and requires a certain level of attention at all times.
projects have completion dates
you can’t truly know the extent of your commitments
How do I know if I should reduce my workload, or increase it? How do I know how many projects I should have going at any given time? What is the right mix of short-term to long-term projects (or research vs. production, or planning vs. execution, or analysis vs. synthesis, or any other dichotomy)?
cannot know what to change until you know what you’re committed to
And what you’re committed to is not a collection of vague responsibilities, but a short list of tangible outcomes. In other words, projects.
you can’t connect your current efforts to your long-term goals
you ensure that your Project List will change nearly every week. This creates a rhythm and a momentum of project completion to maintain your motivation. It generates the constant novelty that the latest research suggests is essential for satisfaction.
You don’t have to accept your manager’s, teams, or organization’s definitions of what a project is!
you can’t know if you’re making progress toward your goals:
Projects require you to be laser-focused, to ruthlessly drive toward an outcome, to smash through or circumvent obstacles, to ignore distractions (i.e. people). Areas, on the other hand, require mindfulness, balance, flow, and human connection. This is the realm of habits, routines, rituals, and intentional communities. Areas require introspection and self-awareness, because determining whether or not you are meeting your standard is an intuitive exercise, not an analytical one.
if you have a project that you think is an area
it will tend to continue indefinitely. If you have an area that you think is a project
you’ll revert right back after it’s been achieved, because you didn’t put in place any mechanism for maintaining the standard.
There is a very illuminating exercise you can perform once you’ve taken the time to formulate a clear Project List. Put it side by side with your Goal List, and draw lines matching each project with its corresponding goal
project without a corresponding goal is known as a “hobby.” If you’re not committed to or haven’t fully articulated the outcome you want, you must be doing it just for fun.
goal without a corresponding project, that’s called a “dream.” You may desire it with all your heart and soul, but without an active project, you are not in fact currently making any progress
there’s nothing wrong with hobbies and dreams. They give life meaning and purpose. But please don’t confuse them with projects and goals
To feel comfortable saying no to what isn’t important, you must be crystal clear on what is
bottom line here is, define your projects, or they will define you. You’ll be constantly pulled and pushed into the projects of others, and find that even when others offer to help you with yours, you won’t even know what they are
people tend to use different organizational schemes in every program they use. They try to adapt a different scheme to the capabilities of each program, forcing their brains to “load up” and remember a different one every time they switch programs
between actionable and non-actionable information. Making this distinction allows you to set aside 95% of the information coming your way, to focus on the 5% necessary for the task at hand