What about 00-09?

You may be wondering why we started our areas at 10-19 and not 00-09, and our categories at 11 rather than 10.

Why don’t we use these numbers?

Reserve them for the system

Sometimes you want to keep information about the system, in the system.

I use area 00-09 for this and call it System.¹

I also store common items in this area that don’t fit elsewhere. Here’s the structure I often use. Feel free to copy or adapt it.

00-09System

00 Index

01 Inbox

02 Notes

03 To do & checklists

04 Bookmarks

05 Templates

06 [unused]

07 [unused]

08 Someday

09 Archive

00 Index

• If I’m using the ‘single file as my index’ method, that file is always called 00.00 Index.
• In a future post I’ll expand on the idea of having this ID be the ‘front door’ for your project.

01 Inbox

• A place to put stuff that you know you’ll sort in the future.
• I tend to use this when I’m starting out: it’s better to put unorganised stuff here temporarily than on your Desktop.
• Be careful! You know you need to organise this stuff at some point. Don’t be lazy.
• This is an idea taken from Getting Things Done®.

02 Notes

• While you should usually store your notes under their own Johnny.Decimal ID — the note relates to something — it can be handy to have a project-wide notes category.
• Use sparingly.

03 To do & checklists

• A place to keep your to do lists and checklists.

04 Bookmarks

• I find it easier to have bookmarks in one place versus throughout my system: that is, if I’m saving them in a text file.
• If you can link them to an ID (or even a category), you should prepend the proper Johnny.Decimal number to your browser bookmark.

05 Templates

• Sometimes I’ll store things I use as templates here.
• Some systems lend themselves to repeatability. I’ll explain this further in a future post.

08 Someday

• ‘Someday’ is another idea borrowed from GTD®.
• This is for things that you want to do ‘someday’ but not now.
• It’s a little like 01 Inbox, but you know that you’re not going to deal with it in the immediate future.
• You should review this periodically.

09 Archive

• Somewhere to throw stuff you no longer need.
• Although I generally do not recommend archiving entire sections of your system. I’ll expand on this in a future post.

Similarly for categories 10, 20 … 90

In our small company example, 20-29 was Administration but our first category was 21 Company registration. What happened to 20?

We reserve these numbers for ‘system’ information about the category. Although I hardly ever use them, it’s rare that I have more than nine categories in an area. I don’t miss the wasted number, but I always appreciate it when I need it.

Similarly for IDs .00

Most humans start counting at one, not zero. So we start our IDs at .01 because it feels more natural.

This does leave ID .00 open for use, and I occasionally use it in the same way: as the ‘index’ ID for a category.

Confused? Don’t worry

If you prefer to use the zeros, use them. It doesn’t matter.