What happened to 00-09?

You may be wondering why we started our:

• Areas at 10-19 and not 00-09,

• Categories at 11 rather than 10,

• IDs at .11 rather than .00 or .01.

Why don't we use these numbers?

We reserve them for the system

Sometimes you want to keep information about the system, in the system. And sometimes you want to keep special things 'at the top' with a consistent number.

This is simplest to describe from the bottom-up. This also mirrors how useful I find them: the IDs are more useful than the area.

Note: this is definitely an advanced concept. It's okay to ignore this until you're really comfortable with Johnny.Decimal.

Standard zero IDs

Within each category, the following IDs are standard.

.00 Index

A place to record information about the category. Use it to remind yourself what goes there and what doesn't.

e.g. 12.00 might contain a description of category 12 Where I live & how I get around.

.01 Inbox

A category-level inbox. Put stuff here temporarily until it finds its permanent home.

When building your system, this can be particularly useful. Design your categories, create inboxes, and as a first step move your existing stuff in to them.

You must tidy this up regularly. Don't let anything sit here: you will forget about it.

.02 Work in progress

When you start a piece of work, it might not be immediately obvious where to save it. Deciding where to put a thing shouldn't be a mental block preventing you from getting on with it.

Use the category-level WIP folder until you know where it goes. As with the inbox, this must be tidied up periodically. Ideally before you finish the job.

.03 To-dos & checklists

If you would like to store to-dos and/or checklists related to a category, put them here.

e.g. 14.03 Video recording checklist might be something you run through before you record a video for your blog.

.04 Bookmarks, links, & URLs

They're all the same thing, so feel free to shorten this.

I tend not to use my browser bookmarks. Instead, I record interesting links in a note in my JDex. This way I can annotate it with descriptive text, and it's easy to find.

This is particularly useful at work with a shared system. e.g. create a shared note that links to all of the places you always log in to, like the timesheet system.

.05 Templates

If you have templates that you use to create new items, store them here.

e.g. in our creative system, we copy the same seven folders to every new job. These empty folders are stored at 90.05.

.06 & .07

Unused. Let me know if you find a use for them.

.08 Someday

A similar concept to .01 Inbox, but where the inbox should be sorted soon, this will be sorted ... someday.

.09 Archive

Taking this one step further, your archive is where you can put things that you are never going to organise.

Think of this as being one step away from the trash. This folder might be chaos: that's fine.

Summary

.00 Index
.01 Inbox
.02 Work in progress
.03 To-dos & checklists
.04 Bookmarks, links, & URLs
.05 Templates
.06 -
.07 -
.08 Someday
.09 Archive

Standard zero categories

Within each area, the category that ends 0 is the area-management category. I name them [Area] management as this makes it more obvious what they're for. e.g. 10 Life admin management.

This is a less specific place than the category-level IDs we just saw. So you should prefer to use those where possible. Within this category, use the standard IDs as described above.

So if you have stuff you want to archive that's related to life admin, and you don't want to decide on a specific category, put it in 10.09 Archive.

Standard zero area

Area 00-09 System management is the system-management area. This is less specific again than the area-management categories. So you should prefer to use those where possible.

Within this category, use the standard IDs as described above. So if you have something you want to store in an inbox but you have no idea which area it relates to, put it in 01.01 System inbox.¹

00.00 Index

There is one specific use for this area. If you keep your index as a single file, that file should be named 00.00 Index.² This puts it at the very top of your system.

A map

The pattern in area 10-19 repeats for all higher area numbers, and similarly for the categories.

00-09System management

00 Index

00.00Index

01 Inbox

01.01System inbox

02 Work in progress

02.02System work in progress

03 To-dos & checklists

03.03System to-dos & checklists

04 Bookmarks, links, & URLs

04.04System bookmarks, links, & URLs

05 Templates

05.05System templates

06 -

07 -

08 Someday

08.08System someday

09 Archive

09.09System archive

10-19Life admin

10 Life admin management

10.00Life admin index

10.01Life admin inbox

10.02Life admin work in progress

10.03Life admin to-dos & checklists

10.04Life admin bookmarks, links, & URLs

10.05Life admin templates

10.06-

10.07-

10.08Life admin someday

10.09Life admin archive

11 Me & other living things

11.00Me index

11.01Me inbox

11.02Me work in progress

11.03Me to-dos & checklists

11.04Me bookmarks, links, & URLs

11.05Me templates

11.06-

11.07-

11.08Me someday

11.09Me archive

A decision chart

When saving data, you should prefer the most specific zero. Follow this chart.

Further reading

• Alternative layout for the standard zeros by Simone.