# 22.00.0023: Johnny.Decimal'ing Johnny.Decimal **URL:** \ **Category:** 22 Blog\ **Created:** [January 2, 2024, 3:53am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121 "2024-01-02T03:53:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 3:53am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/1 "2024-01-02T03:53:31Z")
It’s 2024 and I am declaring ‘organisational bankruptcy’. I’m going to ‘hard reset’ my entire digital life. Here’s the plan. > **[22.00.0023 Johnny.Decimal'ing Johnny.Decimal](https://jdcm.al/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.0023-johnnydecimal-johnnydecimal/)** > > I declare 'organisational bankruptcy'. > This has been a Johnny.Decimal blog post notification; see [21.04 Comms plan • Johnny.Decimal](https://jdcm.al/21.05). ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 3:53am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/2 "2024-01-02T03:53:35Z")
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**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:03am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/3 "2024-01-02T04:03:43Z")
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**Author:** ![\_FJ](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/_fj/32/420_2.png) [@\_FJ](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/_FJ)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 7:50am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/4 "2024-01-02T07:50:13Z")
Yes! I find this very interesting. One question: I can imagine you and Lucy have a lot of digital stuff together, why do this proces separately? ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 8:13am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/5 "2024-01-02T08:13:54Z")
The stuff that we have together is mostly projects like Johnny.Decimal, which are probably the most organised and require the least work. And I manage those, not Lucy. Because until now she really hasn’t been a heavy JD user. But mostly because we have this method of teaching where we put her in the shoes of the viewer. We did this with [our Excel course, Learn with Lucy](https://www.learnwithlucy.rocks). I’m an expert at Excel, and she knew absolutely nothing. So I taught her, but we were really careful to do it _all_ on camera: we never spoke about it off-camera. So everything she learned, she learned in the course. I’d like the Johnny.Decimal Workshop to be like that. And if we roll in all of my stuff as well then a) it won’t be, and b) it’ll take much longer. ---
**Author:** ![Phoebe](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/phoebe/32/495_2.png) [@Phoebe](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/Phoebe)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 12:12pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/6 "2024-01-03T12:12:46Z")
Looking forward to watching you crawl out of bankruptcy @johnnydecimal 🙂 ! I might do just the same, now that I’ve made the plunge and bought The workbook. I read it cover to back last night, it felt like I’ve just found the missing piece (the index !) to my own way of doing things. I was so excited about it that I wrote my first medium post about it 😂. ---
**Author:** ![BigStory](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/bigstory/32/441_2.png) [@BigStory](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/BigStory)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 7:27pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/7 "2024-01-03T19:27:24Z")
Ha, this sounds like fun! Will you let us track along in pieces, or do we wait until the entire project is complete? ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/8 "2024-01-03T21:16:59Z")
It’ll happen live! The next instalment is already up. Perhaps I’ll keep this as a megathread and post each update here vs. in its own new post. Certainly less work for me that way. 🙃 > **[22.00.0024 Starting the JD'ing process](https://jdcm.al/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.0024-starting-the-jd-process/)** > > Starting my own journey of re-organisation. ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/9 "2024-01-03T21:17:26Z")
> [@Phoebe](#): > > I was so excited about it that I wrote my first medium post about it Link please! Sharing is caring. 🫶 ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/10 "2024-01-03T21:27:17Z")
> [@BigStory](#): > > Will you let us track along in pieces To clarify, you’re getting my efforts ‘live’ and in the open. We’ll spend time making Lucy’s a much neater package, as we’ll be selling it for 🤑 So, ‘both’. ---
**Author:** ![Phoebe](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/phoebe/32/495_2.png) [@Phoebe](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/Phoebe)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 10:37pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/11 "2024-01-03T22:37:30Z")
I just needed to share my aha moment with the world, so don’t expect anything deep, but here goes 😀 : [https://medium.com/@phoebe.g/by-the-pricking-of-my-indexes-23025d66f4db](https://medium.com/@phoebe.g/by-the-pricking-of-my-indexes-23025d66f4db) ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 5:18am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/12 "2024-01-04T05:18:30Z")
Love it. Keep writing! ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2024, 5:41am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/13 "2024-01-04T05:41:21Z")
Next post in the series is up. > **[22.00.0025 Systems, data, and knowledge](https://johnnydecimal.com/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.00.0025-systems-data-knowledge/)** > > Thinking out loud about where data can be, and what it is. ---
**Author:** ![dixonge](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/a698b9/32.png) [@dixonge](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/dixonge)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 11:17am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/14 "2024-01-06T11:17:25Z")
Oddly enough, I did something similar. Told my wife a couple of days ago that I’m declaring bankruptcy on my task list. I have spent a lot of time staring at it trying to decide which task to do next. So mainly I just removed tasks that I didn’t think I was going to do any time soon. The logic is that anything really important will stay in my brain and resurface at some point. I may have kept too many tasks, we’ll see. I _did_ keep everything in the genealogy category, as that is just one never-ending project I’ll work on until I’m gone. I also filed a backlog of papers, with 80% just going to trash. Next step is to … Oh crap. I just decided to reorganize my paper files in a JD system. Not sure that will work since my only file system is one accordion container with pre-printed dividers, but … I do already have the digital versions of similar papers in a JD system, so … dammit, It’s all your fault Johnny!!! _angry old man shaking fist at sky_ Oh well, I was going to digitize as much of the paperwork as possible any way. Will be interesting to see how many paper records are truly necessary outside of legal things needed for living in a foreign country. ---
**Author:** ![clappingcactus](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/clappingcactus/32/502_2.png) [@clappingcactus](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/clappingcactus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 12:04pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/15 "2024-01-06T12:04:09Z")
Hi Johnny, Ironically, I’m doing the same. I spent 2023 very deeply thinking about decimaling. Now in 2024, I’m building what I came up with. I have a few thoughts to share based on what you’ve written so far. All files of a particular type go together. E.g. to-dos, music, journal … etc. This unlocks a few unique benefits for me (I don’t dare say for everyone). I can get into it if necessary, but this isn’t the point of my reply here. > [@johnnydecimal](#): > > 22.00.0023 > > My ‘to-do’ system, which currently is a bunch of stuff in a bunch of places: at least 3 different applications, as well as paper scattered all over my desk. Can I recommend: One giant list of all projects with tasks underneath as bullet points. I never have to open any other folder, app or file to remember something I have “to do”. Anything that’s not bullet-pointed is a project, and the line starts with its own JD id in your projects system. Anything that is bullet-pointed gets cut-pasted into my daily journal as tasks for that day or returned back to the big list if I didn’t get around to it. This allows me to have 1 text file for all future plans, 1 text file per day’s work, 1 text file per project (to mention when each step of a project was done to be able to go back to that day’s work and see exactly what was done). Inspired by Jeff Huang (1) and Marc Andreessen (2). > [@johnnydecimal](#): > > 22.00.0024 > > I was chatting to one of my best friends and he reminded me about a video we made about ~15 years ago. I _think_ I have a copy of it somewhere; I recall seeing it recently. As in, some time this decade. But I couldn’t lay my hands on it now. The current JD system as described by you breaks things down by project or functional theme. I think this relies on memory too much. And also necessitates a very well tended index. For me, If it’s a video I’ve made, it will be in my videos folder. It cannot be anywhere else. The videos folder is organized by year I started a collection and I don’t plan to live more than 100 years, so it fits within AC.ID. 44.08 (videos made in 2008). The specific video then gets an ID if I write about it in my notes system … [4408a] Brother Eating Birthday Cake … (this is an actual example). The files are all wed to immutable properties (the type of file … and the date of its creation). I can then have that [4408a] note linked to in a note I have about my brother, or broadly about my family, or about my history with chocolate cakes (a long history I assure you…). This also means that files from different projects can co-exist within one system but as long as their ID is tracked in different note files, they don’t create unnecessary noise for one another. > [@johnnydecimal](#): > > 22.00.0024 > > I don’t have to keep everything I’ve ever done. > > - I have a feeling for what’s important and what isn’t. I’m going to listen to this voice and let it guide me. May I recommend a Psyche guide (3) on this topic that was helpful when I wanted a formal definition for myself for this step. > [@johnnydecimal](#): > > 22.00.0025-systems-data-knowledge/ > > Here I define **data** as a large thing that takes work to [re]create. A photograph is data. A PDF is data. An Excel spreadsheet is data. > > **Knowledge** is something that originated in your brain[5](https://jdcm.al/20-29-communication/22-blog/22.01-latest-posts/#user-content-fn-orsomeone) that you could — assuming you haven’t forgotten it — recall and write down. It’s smaller than data. It’s someone’s birthday; a recipe; places you’d like to go for dinner; a memory to take the bins out on Thursday. > > I don’t know what to do with this yet, or whether the data/knowledge split is required or useful. Indeed! This was one of my main discoveries, too, as to how to divide my files. I chose to divide my files (broadly) as files created by me and files created by someone else. This split _is_ useful, and if you read into the notes of anyone who has looked at this problem sufficiently deeply, you’ll see they all come to the same conclusion. Famously, David Allen (4) and Niklas Luhmann (5) have developed systems of information separated from their reference files. Separation of the item and what you do or have done to get to the item is necessary. This frees the data to be used in multiple areas of knowledge, or the knowledge to inform multiple bits of data. The trick here is to create a system such that a bit of knowledge can inform about itself, too. Knowledge itself is a type of data. For this, I have reserved 10-19 in my system. Knowledge that I have created or synthesized. And here again, I’ve divided it by file type. Text, excel sheets, drawings, musical runs and bits, furniture care documentation, recipes … etc. Each of these get a JD ID themselves. 1. [My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file](http://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file) 2. [Pmarchive · Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity](http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html) 3. [How to nurture and grow a personal library of books | Psyche Guides](http://psyche.co/guides/how-to-nurture-and-grow-a-personal-library-of-books) 4. [gettingthingsdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Filing.pdf](http://gettingthingsdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Filing.pdf) 5. [From Fleeting Notes to Project Notes – Concepts of "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sönke Ahrens • Zettelkasten Method](http://zettelkasten.de/posts/concepts-sohnke-ahrens-explained/#niklas-luhmann-s-workflow) P.S. Sorry for the weird formatting of the links, the forum software wouldn’t let me link to more than 2 simultaneously. ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/16 "2024-01-06T21:10:48Z")
> [@clappingcactus](#): > > This unlocks a few unique benefits for me (I don’t dare say for everyone). I can get into it if necessary, but this isn’t the point of my reply here. Any insight tends to be helpful so if you can, please share. You never know where someone else’s _ah-ha_ moment will come from. > [@clappingcactus](#): > > Can I recommend: One giant list of all projects with tasks underneath as bullet points I’ll certainly consider that, and check out those links. Radical simplification is definitely what I’m going for. Unsurprisingly I also have a few thoughts that I want to test out. > [@clappingcactus](#): > > May I recommend a Psyche guide Will read! Thanks. > [@clappingcactus](#): > > Sorry for the weird formatting of the links I guess because it’s your first post, it’s doing anti-spam protection. I cleaned them up. Thanks very much for the thoughtful post. 🙏 ---
**Author:** ![ktyers](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/ktyers/32/512_2.png) [@ktyers](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/ktyers)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 4:54am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/17 "2024-01-18T04:54:39Z")
Thank you for sharing, I am excited to see the process and outcome of the work that you are doing. I started using Johnny.Decimal for work last October and it almost immediately felt like a super power. Suddenly my files and email (pretty much my whole life as a manager) were not only easily findable, but I no longer agonized over getting myself to inbox 0 because pretty much everything had a home. I started JD’ing every working hour via my calendar and using that for personal metrics and it helped me get a better view of the time sucks in my week. My core set of tools is Obsidian, Omnifocus, and Gmail. JD has felt almost effortless in Obsidian. Gmail required a bit more work, but has proven to be the most interaction I have with JD on a daily basis. I am still unresolved on how to/if I want to integrate Omnifocus. It feels like my task system might have enough sharp edges that the effort to make it conform to the system might not be worth it. I am a huge fan of this system, thank you for sharing it! ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 10:32am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/18 "2024-01-18T10:32:35Z")
Amazing! Thanks for sharing. 😊 Let us know if you do decide to go in with OmniFocus, ‘task’ management is something I’ll be looking at with Lucy early this year as part of recording the Johnny.Decimal Workshop. I put task in ‘scare quotes’ because I think a lot of what we really call ‘tasks’ or ‘to-dos’ aren’t _actually_ to-dos. They’re things we kinda want to remember to do one day maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Eilonwy926](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Eilonwy926](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/Eilonwy926)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/19 "2024-07-21T21:38:06Z")
The “Systems” list in this blog post was really helpful. I’m going through the Workbook thinking, “Well, I already have a pretty good file organization system. I don’t really have [much] trouble finding the thing I’m looking for,” and then I finished the list thinking, “…_ohhhhhhhh_.” ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2024, 11:39pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121/20 "2024-07-21T23:39:45Z")
Excellent! We had some feedback in the workshop from @osau as well, a few more places to look: > Lucy’s places were really helpful! And the idea to actively go around is great. I found two more places to look for things: > > - Property. If you have a house, go look at it. If you own a boat, crawl around. Workshops, gardens, a summer house… > - Interfaces. (Or contacts) Maybe you have kid that go to school; is there some information from/to there you’d like to save? Maybe you have a lawyer you speak to occasionally – is there something in there? > > These are perhaps a little different because you are not actually trying to find stuff that you need to sort, but a little more abstract things that you might realise that you want to save. Arguably, if you did a good job in the more storage type places, you should have found it there, but it gives you a different view. 🤷‍♂️ [Next page](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0023-johnny-decimaling-johnny-decimal/1121.md?page=2)