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Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

johnnydecimal.com

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Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#171

Post by disqard »

emacsen wrote: post #82
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Just a general observation as someone nearing 50. I'm honestly very curious to see if someone has had a different experience than me. I'm am, to put it mildly, not an "organized person". I have tried a million different systems throughout my life - GTD, Inbox Zero, spreadsheets, etc. etc. To be honest, I don't believe that any of these "organization systems" really help people that have problems being organized in th…

I'm in my mid-40s and have severe ADHD and I've tried many many techniques and systems over the years. Over the last ~15 years I've come to evolve a set of systems that work for me. I'm starting (in my "ample free time") to document them and in a series blog posts help people find systems that will work for them. My experience is that the best systems are the ones that have five characteristics: 1. They're simple No…

> They're forgiving if you fall off the wagon

Some (not all) of my personal systems are unforgiving in this regard.

Thank you for pointing out this "Best Practice" explicitly!

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#172

Post by disqard »

erganemic wrote: post #80

Off the top of my head, all PKMs make trade-offs on discoverability, portability, maintainability, and ease of recall. Broadly, "discoverability" is how likely you are to stumble on something you'd forgotten (just recently, I found a file in my "taxes" directory listing all the documents I needed last year, which was a big help, and which I did not remember writing), "portability" is how resistant the system is to a…

You and I are in the same boat!

I keep everything in a single folder, as plaintext Markdown files.

Even if my own software breaks someday, I can always ingest these into a flavor-of-the-month indexer (though I think sqlite + fts plugin goes a long way) and carry on.

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#173

Post by tomcam »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Just a general observation as someone nearing 50. I'm honestly very curious to see if someone has had a different experience than me. I'm am, to put it mildly, not an "organized person". I have tried a million different systems throughout my life - GTD, Inbox Zero, spreadsheets, etc. etc. To be honest, I don't believe that any of these "organization systems" really help people that have problems being organized in th…

I’m well past 60 and seem to have something approximating bad ADHD. I became financially very successful by being fairly obsessed with one thing at a time: software and services companies, real estate, etc. For many years, this meant leaving extra things like guitar practice to the middle of the night. My goal since before marriage was to balance my primary jobs out with family time, which also means caring for handicapped family members. I succeeded. I have never been able to balance work, life, and health altogether, unfortunately. So I’m diabetic and overweight.

I too tried many forms of organization and always ended up abandoning them. What has worked with me was being very focused on the main project and using all kinds of gross little ad hoc ways to keep it going.

There is a second version of me for day each day’s tasks and requirements. That person was revolutionized by phones that understand voice input. I use the one from Apple but I think it’s utterly horrible. However, it is still good enough for me to use about 15 alarms per day that say things like “set an alarm to Get the boys’ laundry at 4 PM“. I have daily alarms to remind me to do things like feed the chickens, and monthly alarms to do things like pay bills or change batteries. I have an annual calendar entry with a master list of things I need to do every month or year.

So the long-term project me is pretty good at planning things in my head and a couple of lists in the source code or source code repos. The short term is completely interrupt-driven.

I am not recommending this system for everyone, or anyone at all. All I can say is that it works well for me, even though it is aesthetically brutal.

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#175

Post by emacsen »

ryanstorm wrote: post #127
emacsen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my mid-40s and have severe ADHD and I've tried many many techniques and systems over the years. Over the last ~15 years I've come to evolve a set of systems that work for me. I'm starting (in my "ample free time") to document them and in a series blog posts help people find systems that will work for them. My experience is that the best systems are the ones that have five characteristics: 1. They're simple No…

Your principles mirror my own, which have been developed and refined over the last ten years (I'm 34 now). There have been periods of overcomplicating things, but they've mostly reached a natural state that works for me. Maybe interesting is the evolution of my system: • 2015 and prior: Sticky notes, calendars, notebooks, sheets of paper, chaos • 2016-2019: I found the bullet journal method and implemented the most b…

I think these systems like Obsidian are great for notes.

PARA also (and for me primarily) helps with things like documents I get from other places which I then scan in.

Yes, I could probably use a specialized program for this, but this way it's all just files.

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#176

Post by emacsen »

istjohn wrote: post #104
emacsen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my mid-40s and have severe ADHD and I've tried many many techniques and systems over the years. Over the last ~15 years I've come to evolve a set of systems that work for me. I'm starting (in my "ample free time") to document them and in a series blog posts help people find systems that will work for them. My experience is that the best systems are the ones that have five characteristics: 1. They're simple No…

I just wrote a sibling comment echoing essentially the same philosophy, although you've elucidated the principles in more detail. As I wrote, my system is basically use a paper filing system (don't overthink it, just alphabetically ordered, labeled manila files), Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Obsidian on my phone for miscellaneous note-taking. I'm eager to learn more about your systems. Where's your blog?

My blog is at https://blog.emacsen.net but I haven't written much.

The problem I have is that writing the why is harder than the what.

For example, I use a modified Cycle System, but some of my modifications are around how many tasks I do a day, and how I categorize which tasks I do.

As an example, understanding task limits and why you should use them is important. As I write out my thoughts about them, it feels boring.

Then I put the blog down and don't pick it up again. Maybe I should do it anyway.

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#177

Post by emacsen »

pjerem wrote: post #107
emacsen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my mid-40s and have severe ADHD and I've tried many many techniques and systems over the years. Over the last ~15 years I've come to evolve a set of systems that work for me. I'm starting (in my "ample free time") to document them and in a series blog posts help people find systems that will work for them. My experience is that the best systems are the ones that have five characteristics: 1. They're simple No…

May I ask your blog URL ? Or add it in your profile :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43134892

https://blog.emacsen.net

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#178

Post by plagiarist »

tomcam wrote: post #173
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Just a general observation as someone nearing 50. I'm honestly very curious to see if someone has had a different experience than me. I'm am, to put it mildly, not an "organized person". I have tried a million different systems throughout my life - GTD, Inbox Zero, spreadsheets, etc. etc. To be honest, I don't believe that any of these "organization systems" really help people that have problems being organized in th…

I’m well past 60 and seem to have something approximating bad ADHD. I became financially very successful by being fairly obsessed with one thing at a time: software and services companies, real estate, etc. For many years, this meant leaving extra things like guitar practice to the middle of the night. My goal since before marriage was to balance my primary jobs out with family time, which also means caring for handi…

Setting constant reminders is a good life hack. Sometimes I wonder if I might be better at life with a haptic tap on the wrist every ten minutes, like just a nudge to think if I am doing what I want to do.

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#179

Post by LambdaComplex »

4k93n2 wrote: post #129
haliskerbas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m like you and I’ve slowly started to embrace it. Sometimes that means three laundry baskets. One for clean one for dirty and one for wear again. And then iterating on top of that!

wont everything be wrinkled when you take it back out of wear-again basket?! i just tend to order most things on hangers with the most newly washed things to the right, then every time i wear something and put it back it goes a bit closer to the left. then when im putting on a wash i know that its all the things on the very left that need to be washed. another useful way to keep track of things is to hang up anything…

> wont everything be wrinkled when you take it back out of wear-again basket?!

Throw it into the dryer while you take a shower. Problem solved!

Re: Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your life

#180

Post by bamboozled »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Just a general observation as someone nearing 50. I'm honestly very curious to see if someone has had a different experience than me. I'm am, to put it mildly, not an "organized person". I have tried a million different systems throughout my life - GTD, Inbox Zero, spreadsheets, etc. etc. To be honest, I don't believe that any of these "organization systems" really help people that have problems being organized in th…

Similar situation, my cure is to do less and slow down. For example after a day on the slopes I make a habit of just putting all my stuff away carefully. To do this I need more time (do less) and slow things down.
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