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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

#71

Post by slightwinder »

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…

They don't need to help everyone, nor solve all problems. Just helping some people to solve some problems is progress. Organization is a spectrum, some parts are more organized, some less. And those systems, tools, whatever, can be a guideline finding your way.

I don't know whether I'm a person with an organized nature (it's probably more on the messy side), but I know that understanding how those tools and systems work, and when, did help me to organize my life a bit better. For me, the main problem is always that I need to have reason for using something and stay with it. Just reading a book and blindly following what it says is not really my thing. But when I find a demand, knowing about those tools and systems did help me to implement solutions for myself which stuck.

It's a bit like not needing all the buttons in a car in the beginning, until it's cold, you want it warm, and you realize that heating might be a good thing for you. You will not know that there is heating in a car, without reading the manual, but if you need it, the knowledge about it will help you find your solution.

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

#72

Post by robofanatic »

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…

as long as you don't get harshly "punished" or judged for being unorganized by others above you in the food chain then you are fine.

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

#73

Post by h14h »

lardissone wrote: post #51
bicx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have ADHD (that I know of) and still love Logseq. For me, it’s the perfect mix of notetaking, journaling, outlining, task tracking, and lightweight hierarchy/linking. I find that if I have to organize or categorize entries in a system, entries just don’t get logged at all.

I'm trying a lot of tools, but I end up using Logseq. It's amazing. Only bad thing is their mobile app, it's so bad.

I've tried a number of KMS's and repeatly bounce off and wind up back in Google Keep. Annoying mobile apps is usually the #1 reason.

I would love it if one of these KMS companies would give up trying to create a mobile app w/ feature parity, and expend energy making something way simpler. All I really want is a solid UX for:

1. Quickly capturing multi-modal thoughts 2. Easily surfacing specofic KMS items

Thinking of my experience with Obsidian mobile... I don't want markdown, I don't want finicky two-way sync that randomly deletes directories, I don't want an entire file tree to tediously navigate.

I just want to be able to hatily jam a thought into the system, and to find specific items in the system, both as quickly as humanly possible.

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

#74

Post by mo_42 »

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 wouldn't say that I was a very chaotic person but after moving several times it felt like it takes longer to find some special tool than buy it new. So I created a little program to keep track of all my stuff [1]. It took quite a while to put everything in there but it helps me to check for a tool if a friend asks for something. Also, I like to be aware of what I own and what I should give away because I don't need it anymore.

[1] https://github.com/mo42/inven

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

#76

Post by bongoman42 »

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…

In a similar boat and I'll add another point. Any new system leads to a temporary increase in focus and productivity. Then it steadily drops off. What this told me is that new systems, as long as they don't have a steep entry ramp are good to get that temporary boost. Just don't expect it to last for months. Also, I found a fair number of high performing people are unorganized, but they often have secretaries and coaches who are themselves organized to get things done for them. But if you are not at a point where you can afford one, you have to learn to get these things yourselves.

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

#77

Post by ziddoap »

chrisweekly wrote: post #67
ziddoap wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your take. I think someone who can/will get organized will do so regardless of which system they use. Someone who can't/won't get organized isn't going to no matter what system is proposed. The benefits of these organization systems, in my experience, come into play when there are multiple people involved (e.g. a workplace, shared storage, etc.), so that everyone can be organized in the same way rather t…

IME having a personal system can be invaluable. It HAS to be something that resonates for you subjectively and personally -- it could be a system someone else has created (bullet journal, PARA, whatever) but if it's going to work, and stick, has to become "yours" to some degree.

I definitely agree when it comes to personal storage. Making the system (whatever it is) "yours" is the key.

But when dealing with shared storage, if everyone makes the system "theirs" to some degree, you end up with a disorganized mess. Which is where a rigorously defined system (this, something else, something custom) is required to keep any sanity.

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

#78

Post by niam »

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…

The closest I've come is in using an "outliner". I don't have it in me to impose structure on notes.

I like how logseq works, where you don't need to name your files. You just write into the "today" log about whatever. Then if you someday want to create a page on a particular topic, the system combs through your past daylogs for incidences of that phrase and throws a reference to it into the doc for you.

There's no necessary starting structure besides the incidental chronology of when you elect to write. But it's useful to me in the same ways I think structure/organization is meant to afford.

Obsidian works similarly, but its unit of information is a document, vs logseq which uses bullet points. I tend to prefer the latter since even prose is too structured for me when I need to quickly jot things.

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

#79

Post by morning-coffee »

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 age, slightly different experience.

I haven't tried a bunch of different systems, but I admit to liking the principles behind this Johnny.Decimal system and might give it a whirl.

I used to get frustrated that all of the information I'd carted along over the years wasn't "organized". I realized a couple things:

  - I really didn't need most of the stuff I thought I did. So I cull/delete and generally try to minimize what is kept from the start.
  - For the stuff I do want forever, I use "Archive" for mail and a similar concept for files. One folder per year and the entirety of that year's activities dumped there. I'll use search over this when needed.
  - Each year I start somewhat fresh, carrying over current areas still active from the previous year while archiving the rest. I then re-evaluate and try to simplify the current "working index" for the current year and its generally easy to find thing within that narrowed context.
My analogy is that life is an immutable log of records ongoing in chronological order... so a folder for each chronological year. Then index in each year as you see fit... the index/categories/areas for each year don't have to be the same as prior years... they likely won't if life is interesting and changing!

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

#80

Post by erganemic »

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 company shutting down/project being abandoned, "maintainability" is how easy to keep your system consistent with its principles (including inserting a new note), and "ease of recall" is how easy it is to find something if you know you're looking for it.

When thinking about a lifelong PKM, I feel like I value portability more than most; something highly tied to a particular company like Notion is right out for me, and I'm leery of stuff like Obsidian or even org-roam, since even if the entries in those systems are just text, I just know that someday the logic that ties them together will stop being developed/maintained and I'll have to migrate.

I feel confident in directory structures and text files as long-term mediums though, and so JD is appealing to me, but its maintainability (specifically the cognitive load around inserting a new note) is such a stumbling block for actually creating content for it. Not to mention the primary thing it trades maintainability off for (ease of recall) is almost entirely solved by search functionality, leaving discoverability as the only benefit over just chucking everything in a flat "notes" directory.

I do something PARA-adjacent now, and I might just commit to that, although denote is interesting as an Emacs user for a slightly more portable tagging- and search-based option.

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