Create Your First PARA Dashboard
How do you actually do this and put a PARA framework together for your own life, for your own work? One of the things Tiago said in the webinar was "let's start with believing it's easy." Today I'm going to show you just how easy it can be!
Start with making lists; you can do this in your bullet journal, you can do it on a notepad. You can do it on any productivity or note-taking or work app that you use, but start making lists based on each of these foundational four stages of Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives.
What are the active Projects in your life? These are things that have a definitive deadline. These are things that have a specific series of tasks that you need to complete. Those are your Projects. Now those Projects can live or be very tightly connected to Areas of Responsibility.
If you work at a job, then that is an Area of Responsibility for you. Now, you probably have Projects within that Area of Responsibility. Depending on how you want to treat it, you can have solo Projects that then move or transition into that Area of Responsibility, or you can have all of your Projects connected to that Area, inside of that same file.
But make a list of all of your active Projects, make a list of your Areas of Responsibility, make a list of things that you are actively interested in and learning about - those are the Resources. Make those three lists today.
What are my Projects?
What are my Areas of Responsibility?
What am I building Resources about?
If you're doing this for the first time, you don't need to worry about Archives. Unless you just want to throw everything in Archive and start from scratch - pulling out projects, areas, and resources as you need them. That's a great way to do it too!
But I would just start with, what are my active Projects, what are my Areas of Responsibility, and what are my current resources? Even if you just did Projects and Areas at the beginning, that would be a really good place to start.
If all of this has resonated with you and the weekend has been filled with PARA, Note-taking, and Second Brain research... Tiago's flagship course Building a Second Brain (BASB) may be a great fit for you. It's one of the best and most impactful courses I've ever taken and has been part of the foundation of my productivity frameworks.
There are two levels of BASB to sign up for - Essential and Premium. Both are excellent and you get a lot from each. Premium offers more resources and interaction to help you get unstuck and create better systems. But you can't go wrong with either one.
If you have any questions just reach out to work@mattragland.com and I'll help any way I can. Enrollment closes on Wednesday, April 28th, but if you're ready sign up today and start going through the first lessons!
