The PARA method is a widely recognized organization system frequently explored by users of personal knowledge management (PKM) tools. This method is simple and can be integrated into any PKM system. While some systems may enhance its intuitiveness, others might introduce challenges, particularly if used as the sole organizational method. Today, I’d like to share how we can implement the PARA Method in AFFiNE Pro, which I believe is a relatively simple and intuitive process. 

Background

The PARA method is a productivity and organization system created by Tiago Forte. It stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. The method is designed to help you organize your digital life and manage your tasks and information more effectively. 

Here’s a breakdown of each component:

• Projects: These are short-term efforts with a clear goal and a deadline. Projects are tasks or series of tasks that you are actively working on and need to complete within a specific timeframe.

• Areas: These are long-term responsibilities and activities that you want to maintain over time. Areas don’t have a specific end date but are ongoing commitments, such as health, finances, or professional development.

• Resources: These are topics or themes of ongoing interest. Resources are collections of information that you might want to refer to in the future but are not currently active projects or areas. Examples include reference materials, research, or learning materials.

• Archives: These are items that are no longer active but you want to keep for future reference. Archives include completed projects, past resources, and any other information that you might need to look back on someday.

How to Implement the PARA Method in AFFiNE

Key components

• Collection

In AFFiNE, a Collection is a smart folder that groups documents based on search queries. These queries can use both AND and OR filter criteria. This collection feature, combined with conventional tags, facilitates the intuitive and straightforward implementation of the PARA method on the AFFiNE platform.

General concept

The purpose of setting up or using the PARA method is to improve overall workflow. Therefore, I do not want to create anything overly complicated to set up or maintain, as that would reduce efficiency. Specific Objectives to Achieve When PARA is Set Up

• Each category must be instantly accessible.
• Any archived document must appear in the Archive and not in any other collection.
• Creating a new item in each category should be intuitive, and simple.
• Multicategory coexistence support.

How to make PARA Setup

Step 1: Create Four Tags

The first step is to create four tags that represent each category in PARA.

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to “All docs > Tag.”
2. Click on “Create New Tag.”
3. Create the following tags: Project, Area, Resource, and Archive.

Step 2: Create an Archive Collection

Next, we will create the Archive collection.

Here’s how:
1. Navigate to the Collections Section: Go to the collections section in the main menu.
2. Create a New Collection: Click on the “+” button, name it “Archive,” and hit Save.
3. Add Rule: Click on “Add Rules” to set up search criteria for this collection.
4. Add Filter: – Click on “Add Filter.” – Select “tags.” – Choose “contains one of” and select the “Archive” tag. – Hit Save.

This collection will list any document that has “Archive” tag regardless of any other tag it has.

Step 3: Create a Resource Collection

Although the creation process for Project, Area, and Resource collections is essentially the same, the current version of AFFiNE does not support sorting collections. Therefore, to achieve the desired PARA order from top to bottom, you must create the collections in reverse order.

So let’s start with resource collection.

1. Navigate to the Collections Section: Go to the collections section in the left main menu.
2. Create a New Collection: Click on the “+” button and name it “Resource.”
3. Add Rules: Click on “Add Rules.”
4. Add Filters

5. Save

This collection will include all documents that have the “resource” tag, except those that also have the “Archive” tag. If a document has the “Archive” tag, it will be excluded from this collection, even if it also has the “resource” tag.

Step 4: Create Area then Project Collections

Repeat the same steps as creating Resource for Area then lastly Project. 

You are set for PARA setup. Let’s now move onto actually use it.

Step 5: (Optional) Add PARA collections to Favorites

You can optionally add these four PARA collections to your favorites. The benefit of doing this is that it allows you to manually order your favorites in any way you prefer. Even if you did not create the collections in the PARA order or added other collections afterward, you can still keep PARA at the top. To do this, simply select the desired collection and click on “Favorites.”

How to Use PARA

1. Create a document using the “New Doc” button.
2. Tag the document with proper PARA category tag.
   
   You can assign multiple PARA categories to a single document, such as “Project” and “Resource.” This will make the document appear in both collections, except for the “Archive” tag.
   
3. When you add the “Archive” tag, the document will no longer appear in any of the other three PARA collections. If you want to ensure that a document exists in only one of the four collections, just make sure to delete the other PARA category tags when changing between the collections.

Avoid “+” creation

While you can create a new document directly under a collection using the “+” button on the main menu—a powerful and convenient feature—I would advise against using this method with the PARA setup. The reason is that creating documents this way bypasses all rules. Consequently, even if you tag the document with “Archive,” it will not disappear from other collections.

If you find this method of adding new documents to each collection more intuitive, you can certainly use it. However, removing from the collection involves more steps with this approach.

To remove the document from the collection, where the doc is created this way,

1. Select the document within the collection.
2. Choose the “remove special filter” option.

Additionally, ensure that you tag the document before removing it. This step is crucial to prevent the document from disappearing completely from the PARA list.

A project = 1 document

Working with actual projects in AFFiNE feels more intuitive than in other PKMS I have tried. The main reason for this is the ability to create multiple notes within a single document when using Edgeless Mode. This feature allows me to treat one document in AFFiNE as an entire project folder containing multiple notes, media files, and other resources. This is one- of the main reasons I currently prefer using AFFiNE over other PKMS I’ve used.

Wishlist

While the current system works well, I am not convinced it is perfect. So here are my wishlist on AFFiNE in the future to improve PARA method organization supporting.

Conclusion

I have just recently started using the PARA method and, although I haven’t fully committed to it yet, I find that setting up PARA organization in AFFiNE is quite intuitive. Its use is both easy and practical in appropriate setting. While PARA method alone may not provide the most intuitive organization of the entire documents within AFFiNE, I think it’s certainly doable and worth giving a try for anyone interested.

If anyone has a better approach to implementing PARA with AFFiNE, please share it in the comments.

Reference/Resources

• AFFiNE Official Site
• Tiago Forte The PARA Method