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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

#191

The problem with organizing is not the lack of tools or techniques. It is simply not possible to devise a system which works automatically with little effort. Everything requires varying levels of discipline which is hard to keep up with time and a different situation.

> It is simply not possible to devise a system which works automatically with little effort.

I use one.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43135927 in this thread.

Truly ZERO effort, yet a backup way to find things without search.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is centered around PARA and free for now. Would love your feedback!

https://thoughtscape.app/

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

#193

The problem with organizing is not the lack of tools or techniques. It is simply not possible to devise a system which works automatically with little effort. Everything requires varying levels of discipline which is hard to keep up with time and a different situation.

I kind of agree with you! But still wanted to take a shot at it:

https://thoughtscape.app/

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

#194

Hey, anyone who can't/won't/doesn't stick with a system... THIS IS FOR YOU. Most organization methods predate search. PARA, for example, can be a decent first cut (active Projects, Areas of responsibility, Reference(research/reading/recreation/really anything), Archive, and you could use that with the below, but don't need to thanks to search.* The real reason we're still trying systems instead of search is we don't…

While search works in most cases, sometimes some sort of organization comes in handy because recognition is easier than recall.

That said, I do like PARA so built this centered around it, with a few GTD and ZK additions:

https://thoughtscape.app/

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

#195
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have an Apple Watch app that does this! It's called Tap Me Every X Minutes.[1] (I'm not the creator, no affiliation, just a happy user.)

Every so often I'll decide to track/log my time and activities every 15 minutes over a few days, just to keep tabs on where my time and energy are really going. This app fits the bill: it's silent and unobtrusive to others and it's never failed to perform properly for me. I just wish it had an option to display a countdown timer for the upcoming tap.

[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tap-me-every-x-minutes/id15116...

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

#199
post #153

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 found GTD had a few basic concepts I try--sometimes even successfully--to follow. But I've basically never been an "organizational system" person.

I agree. I tried a few times but they never stick. I admit that my life would receive a positive buff if I stick to one of the systems, but I just don't have the heart.

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

#200
The more I tried to control and organize my life, the more stressed I became. Digitizing and organizing my knowledge base, in particular, wasted countless precious hours. Recently, I decided to let go of that rigid structure and instead focus on naturally prioritizing the most important tasks for the day, week, and month. So far, this approach has been working well, or at least it feels like it is.
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