How to Organize Your Dev Log’s Topic Notes with P.A.R.A.

Today I’ll explain how to organize all of the topic notes that you’re creating in your dev log.

By now, you’ve started keeping dedicated topic notes on your projects and collaborators. Depending on the tool you’re using, these may be piling up in a single folder with no structure. Eventually, this lack of a system will make finding things or knowing how actionable something is difficult.

The system I’ll show you will:

Provide a logical place for any digital note.

Show by its home how actionable something is.

Be simple and easy to maintain.

Quickly implement in any tool.

The system is called P.A.R.A.

It stands for Projects - Areas - Resources - Archives.

Tiago Forte of Forte Labs developed P.A.R.A., and he teaches it as part of his Building a Second Brain course. Let’s look at how it can organize the topic notes in your dev log.

Projects

Projects are buckets of goal-oriented tasks with fixed deadlines.

The current stories you are implementing

Operational incidents you’re working

Training classes you’re completing

Areas

Areas are buckets of ongoing activity with expected quality standards.

Relationships with your manager, peers, partners, and friends

Your professional development as an engineer

Topical guilds you participate in

Resources

Resources are buckets of useful or otherwise interesting things.

Useful code snippets

Links to useful websites

Things you’ve learned about programming languages, libraries, or frameworks

Archives

Any inactive items from the previous three areas.

Software you’re no longer shipping

Teams you’ve left

Training classes you’ve completed

That’s it! Don’t overthink it. Start using P.A.R.A. in your dev log today.