It's so nice to have a good system and never doubt where to find something and where to put a new thing.

I switched from our previous mess to Johnny decimal by using a python script that processed a table in an emacs org mode file. The script filled the rows in the table with the file and directory names and I could then assign a category to each file or directory and say what the script should do to them. Then the script showed the outline of my Johnny decimal system so I could check that's what I wanted. This made it easy to play around with possible categories for all my existing stuff until I was satisfied. In the end it copied all the files to their new home.

Thanks for creating Johnny Decimal.

I have come across situations where you need more than 10, yes. I plan on addressing it in a future post on the site.

If you’re able to share, I’d love to know more about your case. If not, no stress. [email protected].

I’ll think on this.

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What works well for me is to keep all things I'll need soon in the top level of my documents folder and when I'm done with it I move it into an archive folder.

This way my documents folder has few files and folders in an easily accessible flat heirarchy. While old files can be easily searched for in the archive folder.

At work, I'm a contractor and I typically spend 1-3 years on a project. Each gets its own system, nice and simple.

My home system has 10-19 capturing all of my 'personal, daily life' which leaves plenty of areas for my personal projects. For instance, 50-59 is Johnny.Decimal itself.

So far I've implemented JD:

- Managing a 2 year contemporary dance production, multiple locations, staff, ticketing, marketing, etc.

- Consolidating 200+ data centres in to 7; I did basically all of the hardware from procurement to having a green light on a NIC.

- Running an infrastructure upgrade project for a major bank.

- Running 2nd level desktop support for an international packaging company.

- My personal life, including managing the limited company that I contract through.

I plan on anonymising and documenting as many of these cases as I can on the site. I just need to find the time.

I really like this idea, and am reading through the site right now, and my main fear is that I'll quickly run out of top-level categories.

I need to write another page explaining this. You may have many non-overlapping ‘domains’, whose numbers don’t relate to each other at all. You just have to keep them separate: home computer, work computer. This job, the next job. Etc.

The system running my personal life has been going since 2012. Meanwhile, those other jobs have come and gone.

Maybe it’s just me – clearly I have a mind that loves numbers – but I haven’t found it confusing at all.

Weirdly I have found that I have developed my own internal standards. I generally need to travel with work, and that always ends up being ‘16 Travel’.

(10-19 is usually “Administration” at work.)

High on my list of stuff to write is a whole bunch of example pages. Drop me an email if you’d like me to let you know when they’re done.

I don't find the numbers confusing either. It's just my mind couldn't accept that you could fit everything in your life in 10 areas x 10 categories structure (well, 9x9 really, since 0s are for metadata). So thanks for clarifying (and this definitely needs to go on the page, IMO).

If I may ask here, how do you handle things that cut across two or more of your existing systems? Do you duplicate things? Or use references with target collection name, e.g. "Work Computer 12.34 Some shared stuff"?

I'll drop you an e-mail too.

“An important restriction of the system is that you’re not allowed to create any folders inside a Johnny.Decimal folder.”

WHAT WHY

Like let’s say I’m using your example structure and I am working on a new marketing campaign. With a ton of moving parts to it - new logos to make, contracts to sign and save, websites to design, ads to put together, brochures to design and print, etc, etc. Potentially hundreds of files for each campaign. I just throw all this stuff into the same directory as all the other marketing campaigns? This sounds absolutely insane to me.

I guess alternatively I make a new JD folder - 30.04 Rumplestilskin campaign, 30.05 Butterscotch campaign, etc, but what happens once I’ve filled up the name space and have a new project?

Your use-case needs a bit more thought, and doesn't fit the simple "marketing" example on the website. But that's the beauty of my system – it forces you to actually think about your business, about how you arrange things. It makes you deconstruct it in your mind in order to create that model. I personally find that very instructive in and of itself.

"Hundreds of files for each campaign" is clearly something that needs to be managed. If you're interested in exploring a JD solution for it, I'd be very happy to help. This is all great experience for me, and the more I know about how other people use this system, the better I can make it overall.

Interesting note: Dewey Decimals are zero indexing. And of course, "000" is for computer science.

00 is where I store metadata.

For example, I have '16 Travel' as a category. I make a new JD number for each trip I take and create Finder & email folders. Order details and PDFs tend to live there.

16.01 was, let me look ... a trip to Perth in 2012. And my latest, 16.31, just happened. But of course my '16 Travel' folder sorts like:

  16.01 Trip to Perth to see Bart
  16.02 <name of trip>
  16.03 <name of trip>
  ...
  16.29
  16.30
  16.31 Hunter Valley, Xmas '18

This also has the advantage in that you don't need to remember which year a thing was in. They're all there, visible.