How Does the PARA Method Organize Notes Compared to the Johnny Decimal System?

PARA was popularized by Tiago Forte as part of his Building a Second Brain framework. Its core idea is that the most useful question to ask about any note is not "what is it about?" but "what is it for?" That single reframing turns note organization into a task about action rather than topic.

Each category has a distinct job:

• Projects — short-term efforts with a specific goal and deadline, such as "Launch newsletter" or "Finish thesis chapter 3."
• Areas — long-term responsibilities with a standard to maintain, such as Health, Finances, or Team Management.
• Resources — topics and interests that may be useful later, such as "UX research methods" or "Italian cooking."
• Archives — anything inactive from the other three categories, kept for reference rather than action.

The defining feature is movement. When a project ends, its notes are archived rather than deleted. When an interest becomes a project, notes shift from Resources into Projects. Because notes migrate rather than stay put, PARA rewards consistent review habits more than deep upfront filing discipline.

Johnny Decimal was created by Johnny Noble as a way to give every piece of information a permanent, memorable address. Instead of nesting folders arbitrarily deep, you divide everything into at most ten areas and ten categories within each area.

The structure looks like this:

The number is the address, and the address never moves. Once 12.04 is assigned to a document, it stays 12.04 indefinitely, even if your interests drift. This makes Johnny Decimal excellent for reference material you need to locate reliably months or years later.

The trade-off is that a purely numeric system is not self-explanatory. You must remember what 12 means or maintain an index that tells you. That extra step buys long-term stability that a topical folder tree rarely delivers.

The two systems diverge on almost every axis that matters for day-to-day note-taking.

• Organizing principle — PARA sorts by actionability; Johnny Decimal sorts by predefined address.
• Stability — PARA notes migrate constantly; Johnny Decimal notes never move.
• Memorability — PARA categories are self-explanatory; Johnny Decimal addresses require an index or memory.
• Maintenance — PARA needs periodic reviews and re-filing; Johnny Decimal needs deliberate decisions when adding new areas.
• Best fit — PARA suits project-based work; Johnny Decimal suits long-term reference collections.

In practice, the two methods are not mutually exclusive. Some writers use PARA to decide where an active note lives and Johnny Decimal to give it a stable address they can cite in documents or conversations. A local-first, Markdown-based workspace such as NeoGlint can host either scheme without forcing a cloud taxonomy on top, since folders and filenames stay on your machine. Because NeoGlint stores data as plain local files, you can reorganize, rename, or renumber freely and the structure remains yours.

The choice ultimately comes down to whether your notes are primarily a to-do list or a library. PARA assumes they are the former; Johnny Decimal assumes they are the latter. Whichever you choose, the underlying files should stay accessible and portable rather than locked behind a proprietary service.

Your decision should start with a simple audit of what your notes are actually for. If most of your notes support work with a finish line—drafting a report, planning an event, writing a chapter—PARA's action-first categories will match how you think. You will not waste time deciding whether something is a 'resource' or an 'area'; you will ask whether it is active now and file it accordingly.

If most of your notes are things you need to find again reliably—meeting minutes, tax records, reference PDFs, lecture notes from three semesters ago—Johnny Decimal's fixed addresses will spare you from re-filing every time a project ends. A note that lives at 12.04 today will still be at 12.04 in five years, and you can cite that address in a bibliography or a shared document.

Consider a hybrid approach:

• Use Johnny Decimal to assign a stable number to every durable item.
• Use PARA-style tags or a kanban view to mark actionability: #project, #area, #resource, #archive.
• Review the actionability tags weekly; leave the numbers untouched.
• When a project closes, change its tag to #archive but keep its number.

This split keeps the best of both: you get permanent addresses without freezing your workflow. In a local-first Markdown editor like NeoGlint, you can implement this without fighting a cloud database—files and folders stay under your control, so you can rename, renumber, or re-tag as your needs evolve. The tool does not dictate the taxonomy; you do.

Combining the two systems is more practical than it sounds because they operate on different layers. Johnny Decimal answers 'where does this live permanently?' while PARA answers 'what role does this play right now?' You can satisfy both without conflict.

A workable setup looks like this:

To start, create your ten Johnny Decimal areas and assign numbers to the broad domains you already have. Then, in each note's frontmatter or as a tag, add one PARA label. A note about a current manuscript chapter might live at 31.02 (Writing > Novel) and carry the tag #project. When the manuscript is done, you change the tag to #archive. The number 31.02 never moves.

The main cost is discipline: you must actually update the PARA tags, or they become stale and useless. The benefit is that you never lose a note because a project ended, and you never waste time renaming folders when your priorities shift. In NeoGlint, because everything is stored as local Markdown files, you can add frontmatter tags without any server sync—your structure stays entirely on your machine and remains portable.

When your notes need to survive years of changing interests, Johnny Decimal has a structural advantage: the number is the identity. You do not have to remember whether a note about tax law was filed under 'Finance' or 'Legal' or 'Research'—you only need to remember or look up 12.04. That stability is why some professionals use Johnny Decimal for client files, academic references, and personal records.

PARA can also handle long-term material, but it does so indirectly. Archival notes sit in the Archives category, which is fine for storage but not optimized for browsing. If you archive hundreds of items without a stable addressing scheme, you may find yourself searching more often than navigating.

Consider these trade-offs for long-term use:

• Retrieval speed — Johnny Decimal wins when you know the address; PARA wins when you know the topic but not the location.
• Reorganizing — Johnny Decimal may require renumbering if you outgrow an area; PARA requires re-tagging and moving.
• Memorability — PARA categories are self-explanatory; Johnny Decimal numbers need an index.
• Scalability — Johnny Decimal limits you to ten areas and ten categories per area, which forces prioritization; PARA has no hard limits but can become messy without review.

For a personal knowledge base you intend to keep for a decade or more, a fixed address system reduces future friction. You can still layer PARA on top for current work. And since NeoGlint stores everything as plain Markdown on your local disk, your reference library will remain readable and portable regardless of which system you choose.