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description: "Practising PARA in Jotaid: where Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives each land — and why archiving uses a tag rather than a container."
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# PARA

PARA comes from Tiago Forte's *Building a Second Brain*. It organises by **actionability** rather than by subject, in four tiers from tightest to loosest:

| | What it is | Example |
|---|-----------|---------|
| **P**rojects | Something with a defined end | Finish this paper, ship 1.2 |
| **A**reas | Ongoing responsibilities | Health, managing a team, a research direction |
| **R**esources | Material that may prove useful | Reading notes, industry references |
| **A**rchives | Anything from the three above that is finished | Last year's projects |

It and [Zettelkasten](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/zettelkasten) are two philosophies: the slip-box cares about **how ideas connect**, PARA about **where things go and when to forget them**. They coexist happily — PARA for containers, backlinks for ideas.

## Where the Four Tiers Land

Jotaid has two container tiers and PARA has four, so the mapping turns on one decision: **the first two use containers, the last two use tags**.

| PARA | In Jotaid | Why |
|------|-----------|-----|
| **Projects** | A [project](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/projects) | Something with an end deserves its own scope: list, canvas and graph all narrow to it |
| **Areas** | A project, or a [theme](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/themes) inside a larger one | Responsibilities are ongoing; a theme is lighter. Promote to a project when the area grows big enough to want its own graph |
| **Resources** | A theme, or simply the Inbox plus [tags](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/tags) | Material earns its place by being findable, not by being filed |
| **Archives** | **An `archived` tag**, not a container | See below |

## Why Archiving Uses a Tag

In a file system, archiving means moving something to another folder. **Do not do that here** — moving notes into an "archive project" makes them **vanish from your graph**: the project bar is a global scope switch, and the graph and matrix only compute relationships within the current project. An archived note may still be a load-bearing piece of evidence for some concept; moving it away severs that thread.

Use a tag instead: mark the batch `archived`, [filter](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/tags) them out of daily views, and leave links, nodes and the graph **entirely intact**.

> **The free tier filters by one condition at a time**
>
> On the free tier at most one of tags, nodes and theme can be active. An `archived` tag works there, but cannot be combined with another dimension. Multiple projects need [Pro](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/pricing) anyway — a full PARA structure is essentially a Pro scenario.

## A Workable Starting Setup

1. **The Inbox is your inbox** — PARA's inbox concept already exists here; do not build a second one
2. One **project** per goal in flight (Pro)
3. **Themes** for directions within a project; if an ongoing Area is not large enough for its own project, give it a theme inside a long-running one
4. Leave Resources in the Inbox, findable through **tags and backlinks**, without rushing to file them
5. Tag finished things `archived` and **leave them where they are**

## And CODE

Forte's other half — CODE (Capture / Organise / Distil / Express) — maps like this:

| CODE | What you use |
|------|--------------|
| Capture | [Quick Capture](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/capture): Quick Note, clipping, clipboard import |
| Organise | Projects / themes / tags |
| Distil | `==Highlight==`, [Smart Format](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/smart-format), [theme summaries](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/themes) |
| Express | Markdown export, the [knowledge graph](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/graph) for finding your evidence |

## Next Steps

- [Projects](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/projects) and [Themes](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/themes) — The two container tiers
- [Tags](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/tags) — Archiving and status
- [Zettelkasten](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/zettelkasten) — The other half: how ideas connect
- [Design Thinking](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/design-thinking) — What Jotaid is built around