Day 11 - Big Milestone - I Completed Part 1

I almost forgot to celebrate

Today, I continued writing to the outline for Part 1 of my course on organizing your digital life.

And I nearly missed the fact that I completed the writing for that section.

So I’m doing a mini celebration 🎉 🍾

Thank you for following me on this journey. 😀

As for today, what did I write?

I discussed a common error people make in using the PARA system for organizing your digital life. I also wrote up the exercises that ensure people apply the insights from Part 1.

As I started writing them, I realized that I missed a LOT of steps a beginner would need to implement PARA for the first time.

So if you compare the exercises I wrote to what's in the outline you will see several new exercises I didn't anticipate. That's all completely normal and what you'll experience as you work from your own outlines.

You never anticipate everything.

But the outline is still valuable as I'd be totally lost right now without it.

As an aside, my youngest daughter Eloise isn't feeling well. I called the nurse advice hotline and they suggested I take her to urgent care. She's fine and probably has a flu but doesn't have COVID.

Despite all that, I'm nowhere near as tired as I was yesterday.

In fact, the positive messages I received from some of you thanking me for continuing despite my fatigue made my day.

So thank YOU.

I'll be back tomorrow.

Rodney

P.S. Below is what I wrote today.

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What's a common error people make in using PARA?

Overthinking. They want to get it all "right" from the get-go. They don't want to place something in the "wrong" category. Right and wrong are in quotes for a reason.

We are discovering what works.

Right and wrong are not relevant. Ultimately, you will try PARA in a way similar to what I've shown you at first. At some point, you may find something about this setup doesn't fit your style. Then you'll make an adjustment.

And if you discover that you can't find something later, you have a simple solution.

Search.

You can find anything you want with a simple search. PARA helps put order in our computers which helps us feel ordered in our minds. But search is our savior.

So don't worry too much about where everything goes.

Put what you've learned into practice, and ultimately, you'll be fine.

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Exercises

The following exercises are a way to practice PARA with your hard drive. However, if you want to use a notes app such as Evernote or Obsidian for them, you are welcome to do so.

Exercise 1

• Create all four PARA folders and put them on your desktop for now. You can always move them later.

Exercise 2

• Create a project folder for this course. Call it what you want, but it might be useful to give it the name of this course.

• Put that folder into the Project folder.

• Ta-da! You've just used PARA

Exercise 2

• In the folder, you just created for this course, make a new document with your word processing program.

• In that document, list three projects you are working on, three areas of your life or work that are important to you, and three resource categories that you may use at some point.

Exercise 3

• Create folders for each item you listed in Exercise 2 above.

Exercise 4

• Set a timer for 15 minutes.

• Sort 10 items from your hard drive or browser bookmarks into PARA.

• Create new folders as needed.

• When your timer stops, stop.

• Congratulate yourself on taking another series of steps toward a more organized digital life.