Build your system – introduction

To build your own system, it should now be clear that you need to:

• Break everything up in to, at most, ten areas.
• Break those areas up in to, at most, ten categories.¹
• Assign numbers to those areas and categories.
• Start creating items and assigning Johnny.Decimal IDs.
• Track your numbers somewhere.

It isn’t much more complicated than that.

Advice: don’t rush the process

I’ve done this a lot and the best piece of advice I can give is: take your time.

When you start a new system, you don’t know what you don’t know. It takes time to recognise patterns and understand the scope of the task at hand.

If you rush in, you’ll create categories that are too broad or narrow. You’ll mis-categorise things. You’ll miss things.

You’ll end up having to change it later, which is possible, but not ideal.

Most of my systems are with me for a couple of years. Many last a lot longer. Take the time at the start to get it right.

Step 1: write everything down

Your first goal is to get everything out of everyone’s brains. And I mean everything: the more the better at this stage. If in doubt, write it down.

I find it easier if you’re already planning, or working on, a project. If you haven’t started it’s more difficult. (Also, this means it’s never too late to get organised.)

Write down everything that you do. Whenever a new thing comes up that you haven’t written down, make a new note.

These notes only need to be short: one line. Just enough to jog your memory when you review them later.

Use sticky notes, or a mind map

During this period of discovery you need a frictionless way to record all of these notes.

Sticky notes work great. They’re easy to re-arrange later and there’s nothing quicker than a sticky note and a pencil.

Stick them on the wall of your office and let everyone add to them.

My favourite electronic solution is a mind map. I love MindNode for Apple’s platforms. If you have recommendations for other platforms, let me know.

If you use a mind map, don’t be tempted to organise things yet. Just write it all down in a big flat list.

Involve the whole team

If you’re doing this for a project at work, don’t do it in isolation.

More people = more ideas. At this stage, more is better. Involve everybody.

A cool boss lets everyone cover their office wall in sticky notes.

Minimum: 1 week

Do not spend less than a week on this step.

When you run out of new things to write down, you’re finished. Not before.

Example

Here’s how your project would look if all the things were emoji. You’ve spent a week sticking notes to your wall.

Fun! But also chaos. Quickly, find the turtle. Now pretend the turtle is your project schedule. Not so fun any more.

This is life without Johnny.Decimal. Thank goodness you’re here.

Step 2: group things together

The next step is to group similar things together. Let this happen naturally: don’t have the concept of areas or categories or whatever else in mind.

Just bring things together that feel like they should be together.

This is why sticky notes or mind maps work so well.

There’s no ‘right way’ to do this

You will doubtless find a few different ways to organise your items.

We’ve gone with colours as the first level of organisation here, but we could also have chosen animals, people, and symbols. Or round, square, and random shapes. Or some other way.

Choose what feels natural. Involve the team. Build consensus. (Not everybody has to agree. At some point you just have to make a decision.)

Again, you don’t have to rush this. Sort things and sleep on it.

Step 3: do it again

Now that we’ve grouped things once, do it again.

And there we have it: a Johnny.Decimal structure.

10-19Red things

11 Symbols & signs

11.01'Prohibited' in Japanese

11.02SOS

11.03Blood type A

11.04Blood type B

12 Household things

12.01Telephone

12.02Drawing pin

12.03Lipstick

12.04Glass of red wine

13 Sports equipment

13.01Boxing glove

13.02Table tennis bat

13.03Golf flag

14 Red-haired people

14.01Jemima

14.02Simone

14.03Booker

14.04Nicole

20-29Green things

21 Food

21.01Apple

21.02Cucumber

21.03Kiwi fruit

22 Animals

22.01Snake

22.02Frog

22.03Caterpillar

22.04Turtle

23 Plants

23.01Shamrock leaf

23.02Pine tree

23.03Palm tree

30-39Blue things

31 Emoji

31.01Really cold

31.02Fearful

31.03Sad

31.04The Scream‽

32 Symbols

32.01Left luggage

32.02Customs

32.03Passport control

32.04Wheelchair going real fast

33 Animals

33.01A fish

33.02Another fish

33.03Are all the blue animals fish?

33.04Fish 🥱

33.05I know, I know, the dolphin is a mammal. I was just checking that you were paying attention

34 Clothing

34.01Business shirt in the classic 90s combo of blue with a yellow tie – nice

34.02Casual shirt

34.03Thread

34.04Pants or trousers, depending where you live

Now find that turtle

Your turtle project schedule is now much easier to find, and has a unique ID number that you can use everywhere.

Boss: “Hey Ruby, where’s the schedule?”
You: “Twenty-two oh-four.”

Oh yeah.