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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

#201

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.

I had the same experience with using a paper notebook. There are various systems and tips about how and what to write in a notebook to become more productive. But the best way for me was just to use it as a sheet of paper and write about what feels necessary at the moment with no structure whatever.

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

#205

I bet 90% of the reason this is on the front page is the Berkeley mono font. the system itself sucks.

The first time it was posted I said: I hate the system, but I like the presentation.

The system is great if you like to remember the IPs of the sites you need instead of the urls…

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love org-mode with emacs. I use it to organize my notes / game hacks / todo / pretty much anything using a tree structure. You can use drawers to hide things like sample code.

How does this transfer to mobile when you're out and about?

I use Orgzly on Android. It isn't amazing, but it's pretty good; I just wait on more complicated and bulk operations until I get back to a computer.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, but you asked!

What you are building is essentially what Tiago Forte calls a "Second Brain". He has an entire book around Second Brain, as well as the one on PARA.

Ironically, I've found myself using Second Brain less since using PARA because PARA ends up solving my needs without it.

As an example, this week I received a letter from the tax authority where I live. I took the letter, scanned it, and placed it in my PARA/2 Areas/TAXES/2023 folder (since it was in relation to my 2023 taxes). I used a descriptive filename that included what the letter was about and the date.

I didn't need second brain to process the tax letter- what was important is that it was stored quickly and easily, and that I can retrieve it later if need be. I also don't need any complex tagging or keyword systems- the folder and filename help me find the relevant documents, and it takes no more time than adding lots of keywords. I know because I've tried more complex systems, and they ended up being more trouble than they were worth.

But more importantly, I'm not tied to any specific service or software. I'd never use a program that requires me to upload my most sensitive data to a third party service. It would put my data at risk and it would also mean that if the company were to change its business model (like Notion did) or had a breakin, or went out of business, my data would be at risk.

That's why I don't advocate for Second Brain services that do this, even ones with lots of cool features.

I would love automated integrated voice notes (vs what I do now which requires a bit of cut and paste) but the benefits don't outweigh the extremely high cost to me.

Sorry!

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

#209
post #124

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 challenge the "organized person" thing already. I'm very organized in some areas and make the biggest mess in others. Also what does "unorganized" even mean? I usually don't forget work TODOs but I regularly forget non-work TODOs. One has me have a text file open on the same computer, and in the other area stuff comes up left and right, and if I have my phone to jot it down it doesn't mean I will look at my phone o…

I just use MS ToDo synced across all devices with GTD. My "Waiting For" bucket currently contains around 20 items, most of them with reminders to follow up on the status. No way I would keep on top of it without a structured system.

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

#210

It took me about 2 hours to organize a disorganized syncthing folder for my business into this system as I understood it. Now to see if it helps. I am diagnosed with ADHD. For what it is worth, some tools actively work against the use of folders on Windows now, including Office. Acrobat is another offender. (Not using Windows is not currently possible, too many assume Windows use in my industry). Even Google Drive hi…

On Windows for many years now I've been putting things anywhere and then relying on a program called "Everything" to find stuff. I'm very happy with this set up. It allows extremely quick file system searches. I've tried to work with neatly organized folders at times but I would always get lost in them and things end up in the wrong place anyway.
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