Your life in a single file
SEO Note

PARA method in a notes tree

PARA looks clean on a slide: Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive. On disk it often turns into four giant folders where everything is “maybe useful someday.” You open Projects and find seventeen half-finished goals, three of which are actually Areas wearing a deadline costume. Then you dump the mess into an AI chat and ask it to “organize my life.” The model invents a prettier mess. You still do not know which node is the source of truth.

Three builds ship from this site. SEO Note 2.1 is the current one: an Electron app (about 121 MB installer) for Windows 10/11 64-bit and Linux x64, with Markdown, the tree editor, AI talking to a model you connect — a local one or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, a web clipper and git sync of the file. For Android 6.0 and newer there is a release-signed APK (~10 MB) of the same interface; on the phone notes live as a folder of Markdown files on the device, and passwords, sync, the clipper and AI answer there with an explicit refusal. The classic build 1.3.34 (~2.5 MB, Win32) stays on the download page for Windows 7, 8 and 32-bit PCs, where 2.1 does not install; its notes file is .seo. All three work offline with no account: pick your build, or read how 2.1 and 1.3.34 differ.

SEO Note is a free Windows tree outliner that stores one local file — text, rich text, HTML, bookmarks — with no mandatory account and no bundled model. The tree is your knowledge base. The chat is a temporary helper on a curated slice — in the app, on the endpoint you connect, or outside it. That split is the whole point of this guide.

Where the work happens

In SEO Note (PARA tree)
  • Active projects with outcomes
  • Standing areas you maintain
  • Reference you may reuse
  • Archived finished work
In the AI chat
  • One project brief at a time
  • Draft plans and checklists
  • Rewrite / critique passes
  • Disposable brainstorms

PARA as four top-level branches

Tiago Forte’s labels stay useful if you treat them as jobs, not vibes. A Project has an end state. An Area has a standard to uphold with no finish line. Resources are material you might need again. Archive is what you are done touching. In an outliner that maps to four parents under the root — not nested PARA systems inside every client folder.

PARA.sn
  Projects
    Website redesign — go-live Apr
      Outcome / constraints
      Decisions
      Open questions
    Tax pack 2026
  Areas
    Health
    Finances
    Clients (standing)
  Resources
    Writing craft
    Tool docs
  Archive
    2025-q4 projects
  Inbox
  AI scratch

Keep Inbox for capture and AI scratch for dated model dumps. Never let either sit next to Decisions unlabeled. Ready-made skeletons live on templates when you want a faster start.

What to paste into AI (one project only)

Open a single project under Projects — for example Website redesign. Copy Outcome, Constraints, Decisions, and Open questions. Leave Areas and Resources out unless one short note is a hard constraint. Paste with a prompt that forbids inventing missing dates or budgets.

Reusable project prompt

You are helping me plan one project. Use only the notes below.
Do not invent deadlines, budgets, or stakeholders.
Output: (1) 5 next actions, (2) risks I already implied, (3) questions still open.
If something is missing, list it under Questions — do not guess.

NOTES:
[paste Outcome + Constraints + Decisions + Open questions]
Do not paste the whole PARA vault. Skip passwords, client secrets, health details, and other people’s PII. Archive branches especially — they are old and often overshare. Curate one project slice; leave the rest on disk.

How to wire PARA in one sitting

  1. Create four parents: Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive. Add Inbox if you capture fast.
  2. Move only active work with a real outcome into Projects. If there is no end state, it is an Area.
  3. Park standing responsibilities (health, money, “keep clients happy”) under Areas with a short standard, not a fake deadline.
  4. Put reusable notes under Resources. Put finished projects under Archive with a year or quarter label.
  5. Pick one Project node. Fill Outcome / Decisions / Open questions. Run the prompt above once.
  6. Rewrite accepted actions back into the project node in your own words. Set a “Last verified” date if you use the template from local notes as source of truth.
  7. Close the chat. The tree is what you keep.

Project vs Area — quick test

1 Can you finish it this quarter?
2 Yes → Projects with an Outcome line
3 No → Areas with a Standard line
4 Done forever → Archive, dated

Migrating from a messy folder dump

If you already have a decade of “Misc” and “New folder (3),” do not PARA-wash everything in one weekend. Move only what you will touch this month into Projects and Areas. Leave the rest in a temporary Legacy parent under Archive. Every time you reopen a legacy note for real work, file it properly. AI is a poor migrant here: it will invent tidy labels for notes you have not read. Read first, label second.

Areas need a one-line standard, not a task list. “Finances: books closed by the 5th” beats twenty unchecked “pay something” bullets. When an Area sprouts a deadline with an end state — tax pack, insurance claim — spawn a Project and leave the Area as the standing rule.

Resources should answer “might I reuse this explanation?” If the answer is “maybe for vibes,” it is Inbox residue. Cap Resources growth: once a quarter, archive anything untouched for a year. That keeps AI briefs short when you truly need one reference paragraph beside a project.

Pitfalls and when this is the wrong tool

  • Treating Areas as eternal Projects — everything gets a fake “due Friday”
  • Asking AI to reorganize all four branches at once; you get taxonomy theater
  • Duplicating the same decision in Projects and Areas without naming which wins
  • Letting Resources become a second Inbox; if you have not opened a note in a year, Archive it
  • SEO Note is not live multiplayer, and it is not a phone-first capture app either: the 2.1 APK keeps its own Markdown folder with no sync. Shared team plans stay in the wiki your team already uses; private PARA stays local
  • No embeddings, no semantic index — “Ask over my notes” runs on the local full-text search, and you still paste on purpose

Freelancers often keep client work under Projects and standing client care under Areas — a sibling pattern in freelancer notes tree + AI. Daily capture that feeds weekly review fits daily notes → AI review. For what never belongs in a paste, see AI privacy: what not to paste.

Next steps

  1. Create the four PARA parents in a new or existing SEO Note file
  2. Sort five real items — not hypothetical ones
  3. Brief AI on one Project only; write outcomes back
  4. Copy the file to USB or another disk
  5. Download SEO Note free (no account) if you do not have it yet

Keep going

  • Tree templates and PDF guide — role and method skeletons you can copy straight into your own tree.
  • If this guide helped, you can say hello or grab ready-made trees on the templates page.

Adjacent tools (VPS for local models, courses, VPN) are not stuffed into every paragraph. If an affiliate link appears, it will be labeled and is never required to use SEO Note.

Mini FAQ

What kinds of notes does one SEO Note file hold? A single local file holds text, rich text, HTML and bookmarks, with no mandatory account. No model ships with it: the AI in 2.1 calls an endpoint you connect, and the APK and the classic 1.3.34 build have no AI.

Does SEO Note include AI that answers questions from my notes? It has “Ask over my notes”: the app takes the top hits of its own full-text search — up to six notes — as context and calls the model you connected. There are no embeddings and no semantic index, and if you switch AI off you paste a curated slice yourself instead.

How should I tell Projects apart from Areas in the tree? Ask whether you can finish it this quarter. If yes, it is a Project with an Outcome line; if not, it is an Area with a Standard line.

What should I keep out of an AI paste for privacy? Skip passwords, client secrets, health details, other people's personal data and whole Archive branches, which are old and often overshare.

How do I migrate years of messy folders into a PARA tree? Move only what you will touch this month into Projects and Areas, and park the rest in a temporary Legacy parent under Archive.

Related: Source of truth + AI · Freelancer tree · Daily notes review · Second brain offline · Prompt templates · Templates · FAQ