GTD, Zettelkasten, PKM, PARA — the major systems compared.
David Allen's GTD is 25 years old and still widely used. Its core insight — that your brain is for processing ideas, not storing them — remains relevant and correct. The system is heavyweight for casual users but powerful for high-volume knowledge workers who fully implement it.
Tiago Forte's PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) is a simpler information organisation system that works well with modern tools. The key question it asks: is this related to an active project, an ongoing area of responsibility, reference material, or archive? Answering that question consistently creates a usable system.
Every productivity system works — for the person who designed it, at the time they designed it. The goal is to understand the principles well enough to build your own system: capture everything, process regularly, review weekly, and act on the most important things first.