Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system.
想象一下完美的组织系统。
A system that told you exactly where to put every piece of information in your life – every document, file, note, agenda, outline, and bit of research – and exactly where to find it when you needed it.
该系统可以准确地告诉您生活中的每条信息（每份文档、文件、笔记、议程、大纲和研究成果）应该放在哪里，以及在您需要时准确地找到它。
Such a system would need to be incredibly easy to set up, and even easier to maintain. After all, only the simplest, most effortless habits endure long term.
这样的系统需要非常容易设置，甚至更容易维护。毕竟，只有最简单、最轻松的习惯才能长久。
It would need to be both flexible, adapting to your needs in different seasons of your life, but also comprehensive, so you can use it in every one of the many places where you store information, such as your computer’s file system, a cloud storage platform (e.g., Dropbox or Google Drive), or a digital notetaking app.
它需要既灵活，适应您生活中不同季节的需求，又需要全面，以便您可以在存储信息的每一个地方使用它，例如计算机的文件系统、云存储平台（例如 Dropbox 或 Google Drive）或数字笔记应用程序。
But most of all, the ideal organizational system would be one that leads directly to tangible benefits in your career and life. It would dramatically accelerate you toward completing the projects and achieving the goals that are most important to you.
但最重要的是，理想的组织系统应该能够直接为您的职业和生活带来切实的好处。它将极大地加速您完成项目并实现对您来说最重要的目标。
In other words, the ultimate system for organizing your life is one that is actionable.
换句话说，组织生活的终极系统是一个可行的系统。
Instead of putting more obstacles in your way, postponing the actions that will make a difference, it would pull those actions closer and make them easier to start and finish.
它不会在你的道路上设置更多障碍，推迟会产生影响的行动，而是会让这些行动更接近，让它们更容易开始和完成。
After more than a decade of personal experimentation, teaching thousands of students, and coaching world-class professionals, I’ve developed such a system.
经过十多年的个人实验、教授数千名学生并指导世界一流的专业人士，我开发了这样一个系统。
It’s called PARA – a simple, comprehensive, yet extremely flexible system for organizing any type of digital information across any platform.
它被称为 PARA——一个简单、全面但极其灵活的系统，用于跨任何平台组织任何类型的数字信息。
I promise you that it will not only bring order to your life, but equip you with a set of tools for skillfully mastering the flow of information to achieve anything you set your mind to.
我向你保证，它不仅会给你的生活带来秩序，还会为你配备一套工具，让你能够熟练地掌握信息流，从而实现你想要实现的任何目标。
4 Categories to Encompass Your Entire Life
涵盖您一生的 4 个类别
PARA is based on a simple observation: that there are only four categories that encompass all the information in your life.
PARA 基于一个简单的观察：只有四个类别涵盖了您生活中的所有信息。
You have projects you’re actively working on – short-term efforts (in your work or personal life) that you take on with a certain goal in mind. For example:
你有一些正在积极开展的项目——为了实现某个目标而进行的短期努力（在你的工作或个人生活中）。例如：
- Complete webpage design 完整的网页设计
- Buy a new computer 买一台新电脑
- Write research report 撰写研究报告
- Renovate the bathroom 翻新浴室
- Finish Spanish language course
完成西班牙语课程 - Set up new living room furniture
设置新的客厅家具
You have areas of responsibility – important parts of your work and life that require ongoing attention. These might include:
您有自己的职责范围——工作和生活中需要持续关注的重要部分。这些可能包括：
- Work responsibilities such as Marketing, Human Resources, Product Management, Research and Development, Direct Reports, or Engineering
工作职责，例如营销、人力资源、产品管理、研发、直接报告或工程 - Personal responsibilities such as Health, Finances, Kids, Writing, Car, or Home
个人责任，例如健康、财务、孩子、写作、汽车或家庭
Then you have resources on a range of topics you’re interested in and learning about, such as:
然后，您将获得有关您感兴趣和学习的一系列主题的资源，例如：
- Graphic design 平面设计
- Personal productivity 个人生产力
- Organic gardening 有机园艺
- Coffee 咖啡
- Modern architecture 现代建筑
- Web design 网页设计
- Japanese language 日语
- French literature 法国文学
- Notetaking 做笔记
- Breathwork 呼吸法
- Habit formation 习惯养成
- Photography 摄影
- Marketing assets 营销资产
Finally, you have archives, which include anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active, but you might want to save for future reference:
最后，您有存档，其中包括前三个类别中不再有效的所有内容，但您可能希望保存以供将来参考：
- Projects you’ve completed or put on hold
您已完成或搁置的项目 - Areas that are no longer active or relevant
不再活跃或不再相关的领域 - Resources that you’re no longer interested in
您不再感兴趣的资源
And that’s it! Four top-level folders – Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives – each containing a small number of subfolders dedicated to each active project, area of responsibility, resource, and archive in your life.
就是这样！四个顶级文件夹 - 项目、区域、资源和档案 - 每个文件夹都包含少量子文件夹，专门用于您生活中的每个活动项目、责任区域、资源和档案。
It may be difficult to believe that a complex, modern human life like yours can be reduced to just four categories. It may feel like you have far more to deal with than can fit into such a simple system.
可能很难相信像您这样复杂的现代人类生活可以简化为只有四个类别。您可能会感觉要处理的事情远远超出了如此简单的系统所能容纳的范围。
But that is exactly the point: if your organizational system is as complex as your life, then the demands of maintaining it will end up robbing you of the time and energy you need to live that life.
但这正是要点：如果你的组织系统和你的生活一样复杂，那么维护它的需求最终会剥夺你过这种生活所需的时间和精力。
The system you use to organize information has to be so simple that it frees up your attention, instead of taking more of it. Your system has to give you time, not take time.
您用来组织信息的系统必须非常简单，以便能够释放您的注意力，而不是占用您更多的注意力。你的系统必须给你时间，而不是花时间。
The Key Principle – Organizing Information By Your Projects And Goals
关键原则 – 按项目和目标组织信息
Most of us first learned how to organize information in school. We were taught to categorize our class notes, handouts, and study material by academic subject, such as Math, History, or Chemistry.
我们大多数人首先在学校学习如何组织信息。我们被教导要按数学、历史或化学等学科对课堂笔记、讲义和学习材料进行分类。
But then without realizing it, we took that same approach into adulthood. We continued to categorize our documents and files according to incredibly broad subjects like “Marketing,” “Psychology,” “Business,” or “Ideas.”
但后来我们没有意识到，我们在成年后也采取了同样的方法。我们继续根据“营销”、“心理学”、“商业”或“想法”等极其广泛的主题对我们的文档和文件进行分类。
This makes zero sense in your post-academic career. In the workplace, there are no classes, no tests, no grades, and no diplomas. No teacher is going to tell you what to write down for the final exam, because there isn’t one.
这对你的毕业后职业生涯毫无意义。在工作场所，没有课程、没有考试、没有成绩、没有文凭。没有老师会告诉你期末考试要写什么，因为没有老师。
What you do have, both at work and in life, are outcomes you are trying to achieve. You are trying to launch a new product, plan a family vacation, come to a crucial decision, find daycare in your neighborhood, publish a new piece of writing, or reach a quarterly sales number.
无论是在工作中还是在生活中，您所拥有的都是您想要实现的结果。您正在尝试推出新产品、计划家庭度假、做出关键决定、在附近寻找日托中心、发表新文章或达到季度销售数字。
In the midst of your busy day, as you are trying to make these things happen, you absolutely do not have time to go rummaging through a vast category like “Psychology” to find the one piece of information you need.
在忙碌的一天中，当你试图让这些事情发生时，你绝对没有时间翻遍“心理学”这样的庞大类别来找到你需要的信息。
Instead of organizing information according to broad subjects like in school, I advise you to organize it according to the projects and goals you are committed to right now. This is what it means to “organize by actionability,” a mantra I will return to again and again throughout this book.
我建议您不要像在学校那样根据广泛的学科来组织信息，而是根据您现在致力于的项目和目标来组织信息。这就是“按可操作性进行组织”的含义，我将在本书中反复提及这一口号。
When you sit down to work on a graphic design project, for example, you will need all the notes, documents, assets, and other material related to that project all in one place and ready to go.
例如，当您坐下来从事图形设计项目时，您将需要与该项目相关的所有笔记、文档、资产和其他材料都集中在一处并随时可以使用。
That might seem obvious, yet it is exactly the opposite of what most people do. Most people tend to spread out all the relevant material in a dozen different places that would take them half an hour just to locate.
这似乎是显而易见的，但它与大多数人的做法恰恰相反。大多数人倾向于将所有相关材料分散在十几个不同的地方，光是找到它们就需要半个小时。
How do you make sure that all the material related to each project or goal is all in one place? You organize it that way in the first place. That way you’ll know exactly where to put everything, and exactly where to find it.
您如何确保与每个项目或目标相关的所有材料都集中在一处？你一开始就是这样组织的。这样您就可以准确地知道所有东西应该放在哪里，以及在哪里可以找到它们。
The Power of Organizing By Project
按项目组织的力量
For several years, I worked as a productivity coach in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the peak of the tech boom, and high-powered professionals from some of the world’s most influential companies were looking for any edge in their performance. I was happy to oblige.
多年来，我在旧金山湾区担任生产力教练。当时正是科技繁荣的顶峰，来自世界上一些最有影响力的公司的高级专业人士正在寻找他们的业绩优势。我很乐意效劳。
I coached several executives at a well-known biotech firm in South San Francisco, on a beautiful campus overlooking the bay. I remember one beautiful spring day I was waiting for my next client, a Senior Director in charge of developing several new life-saving pharmaceuticals.
我在南旧金山一家著名生物技术公司的一个俯瞰海湾的美丽校园里指导了几位高管。我记得在一个美丽的春日，我正在等待我的下一位客户，一位负责开发几种新的救生药物的高级总监。
Once he arrived, our coaching session started like every other, with a simple question of mine: “Do you have a project list?”
他一到，我们的辅导课程就像其他课程一样开始了，我问了一个简单的问题：“你有项目清单吗？”
When working with a client as a productivity coach, one of the first things I will always ask them is to show me their project list. I need it to get a sense of what kind of work they do, their current workload, and what priorities and outcomes they are trying to move forward.
当作为生产力教练与客户合作时，我总是会要求他们的第一件事就是向我展示他们的项目清单。我需要它来了解他们所做的工作、当前的工作量以及他们正在努力推进的优先事项和成果。
He said “Sure!” and, after jotting down a quick list from memory (the first warning sign), handed me a list like this:
他说：“当然！”并且，在凭记忆记下一个快速列表（第一个警告标志）后，递给我一个如下的列表：
Do you see the problem? Look again closely.
你看到问题了吗？再仔细看看。
Not a single item on this list is a project, according to our earlier definition. Does “strategic planning” ever end for good? Is there ever a time when you can permanently cross off “vacations” from your list? Hopefully not!
根据我们之前的定义，此列表中没有一项是项目。 “战略规划”会永远结束吗？是否有某个时候，您可以从清单中永久划掉“假期”？希望不是！
Every item on this list is, in fact, an area of responsibility. This might seem like semantics, but it’s anything but. I’ve learned that no matter how smart or driven you are, there are two critical things you cannot do until you break down your areas of responsibility into specific projects.
事实上，这个清单上的每一项都是一个责任范围。这可能看起来像语义，但事实并非如此。我了解到，无论您多么聪明或多么有动力，在将您的职责范围分解为具体项目之前，有两件关键的事情是您无法完成的。
1. You Can’t Truly Know the Extent of Your Commitments
1. 你无法真正知道你的承诺的范围
One of the most common complaints I hear from people is that they “have no bandwidth.” And I sympathize – how much of the time does it feel like you have way too much on your plate?
我从人们那里听到的最常见的抱怨之一是他们“没有带宽”。我很同情——有多少时间你会感觉自己的事情太多了？
But as long as you view your work through the lens of areas, you’ll never quite know just how much is on your plate. Looking at the list above, how much of a workload does “Hiring” represent? It could be anything from a part-time hire every 6 months to filling 50 positions this quarter.
但只要你通过区域的视角来看待你的工作，你就永远不会完全知道你的盘子里到底有多少。看看上面的列表，“招聘”代表了多少工作量？范围可以是从每 6 个月雇佣一次兼职到本季度填补 50 个职位。
There’s simply no way to know at a glance, and that uncertainty will manifest itself as every area feeling more burdensome than it really is.
根本无法一眼就知道，而且这种不确定性会表现为每个领域都感觉比实际情况更加繁重。
Imagine if you identified each of the projects within Hiring, and kept that list in front of you every day. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to tell how much there is left to do, and what you should do next? For example:
想象一下，如果您确定了招聘中的每个项目，并每天将该列表放在您面前。知道还有多少事情要做以及下一步应该做什么不是更容易吗？例如：
2. You Can’t Connect Your Current Efforts to Your Long-Term Goals
2. 你无法将当前的努力与长期目标联系起来
One of the most challenging (but also rewarding) aspects of knowledge work is that it requires our creativity. And creativity can’t really be sustained without a sense of motivation. You can’t keep doing your best thinking and contributing your best ideas if you’re burned out and demoralized.
知识工作最具挑战性（但也最有价值）的方面之一是它需要我们的创造力。如果没有动力感，创造力就无法真正持续。如果你精疲力尽、士气低落，你就无法继续尽你最好的思考并贡献你最好的想法。
What does our motivation depend on? Mostly, on making consistent progress. We can endure quite a bit of stress and frustration in the short term if we know it’s leading somewhere.
我们的动力取决于什么？主要是，不断取得进步。如果我们知道它在某个地方领先，我们可以在短期内承受相当大的压力和挫折。
Which brings us to our second problem: without a list of individual projects, you can’t connect your current efforts to your long-term goals.
这就引出了我们的第二个问题：如果没有单个项目的列表，您就无法将当前的努力与长期目标联系起来。
Look at the list above again. None of the items on it will end or change – that’s the definition of an area of responsibility, that it continues indefinitely. Now imagine the psychological effect of waking up week after week, month after month, and even year after year to the exact same list of never-ending responsibilities. No matter how hard you work, the endless horizon never seems to get any closer.
再看看上面的列表。上面的任何项目都不会结束或改变——这就是责任范围的定义，它会无限期地持续下去。现在想象一下，周复一周、月复一月、甚至年复一年地醒来，面对完全相同的永无休止的责任清单，会产生怎样的心理影响。无论你多么努力，无尽的地平线似乎永远不会靠近。
Honestly, I couldn’t design a better way to kill your motivation if I tried.
老实说，如果我尝试的话，我无法设计出更好的方法来扼杀你的动力。
When you break down your responsibilities into bite-sized projects, you ensure that your project list is constantly turning over. This turnover creates a cadence of regular victories that you get to celebrate every time you successfully complete a project. Imagine how motivated and accomplished you’d feel by breaking out the broad area of “Events” into each individual event you’re running:
当您将职责分解为小项目时，您就可以确保您的项目清单不断更新。这种更替创造了一种定期胜利的节奏，每次成功完成一个项目时你都可以庆祝。想象一下，如果将广泛的“活动”领域分解为您正在举办的每个单独活动，您会感到多么有动力和成就感：
No matter how wide-ranging your responsibilities are, you can always break them down into smaller projects. And you must, if you want to know whether you’re actually making progress toward your goals.
无论您的职责有多广泛，您始终可以将其分解为较小的项目。如果您想知道自己是否确实在实现目标方面取得了进展，那么您必须这样做。
The Actionable Guide to implementing the PARA Method is out!
实施 PARA 方法的可行指南已发布！
Order your copy now. The book is available in hardcover, ebook, and audio format.
立即订购您的副本。该书有精装书、电子书和音频格式。
Getting Organized For the Life You Want to Lead
为你想要的生活做好准备
Using PARA is not just about creating a bunch of folders to put things in.
使用 PARA 不仅仅是创建一堆文件夹来存放东西。
It is about identifying the structure of your work and life—what you are committed to, what you want to change, and where you want to go. It is about organizing information in such a way that it supports and calls into being the future life you want to lead.
它是关于确定你的工作和生活的结构——你致力于什么，你想要改变什么，以及你想去哪里。它是以一种支持并塑造你想要的未来生活的方式组织信息。
So much of what we call “organizing” is essentially procrastination in disguise. We tell ourselves we’re “getting ready” or “doing research,” pretending like it’s progress. When in reality, we are seeking any little thing we can polish or tidy to avoid having to face the task we are dreading.
我们所谓的“组织”本质上是变相的拖延。我们告诉自己我们正在“做好准备”或“正在进行研究”，假装它正在取得进展。事实上，我们正在寻找任何可以打磨或整理的小东西，以避免不得不面对我们害怕的任务。
PARA cuts through this facade, giving us a method for organizing anything that is so radically simple, there is no excuse and nothing left to do except the next essential step. It is a minimalistic way to add just enough order to your environment that you have the clarity to move forward, and no more.
PARA 打破了这个外观，为我们提供了一种组织任何事物的方法，这种方法非常简单，没有任何借口，除了下一个重要步骤之外没有什么可做的。这是一种简约的方式，可以为您的环境添加足够的秩序，让您能够清晰地前进，而不是更多。
There are other more complex, sophisticated, and specialized ways of organizing information out there, but PARA is the only one that stands the test of time because it gives you more time than it takes.
还有其他更复杂、精密和专业的信息组织方式，但 PARA 是唯一经得起时间考验的方式，因为它为您提供的时间比实际需要的时间要多。
Follow us for the latest updates and insights around productivity and Building a Second Brain on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And if you’re ready to start building your Second Brain, get the book and learn the proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential.
在 Twitter、Facebook、Instagram、LinkedIn 和 YouTube 上关注我们，了解有关生产力和构建第二大脑的最新动态和见解。如果您准备好开始构建您的第二大脑，请获取这本书并学习经过验证的方法来组织您的数字生活并释放您的创造潜力。
- Posted in Building a Second Brain, Note-taking, Organizing, Productivity, Project management, Technology
发表于构建第二大脑、记笔记、组织、生产力、项目管理、技术 - On
2023 年 2 月 24 日 - BY Tiago Forte 作者：蒂亚戈·福尔特
