On Discord, theoutermost asks in the context of the Small Business System:
I’m trying to work out where’s best to keep my files related to my Portfolio/Showreel and CV. To me they are related to my work and business rather than my Life Admin, so it would seem appropriate for them to be in my SBS but I’m not sure where.
SBS vs. LAS
The first decision is an easy one: if you have the Life Admin System and the Small Business System, and you’re wondering where to store stuff related to your work: it’s the SBS.
As we’ll see below, there’s a nice way to leave yourself a breadcrumb in your LAS. So if you go looking for it there, you won’t be confused.
Portfolios, showreels, and CVs are ‘marketing’
From the description of category 31 Marketing, PR, & communications:
Anything that you would classify as self-promotion, either paid or free.
This category comes ‘empty’ – it contains no IDs – as we can’t know what you might need to create here.[1] So you need to create a couple of IDs for yourself.
This feels to me like two things: your portfolio/showreel, and your CV. But you decide: you might like an ID each for your portfolio & showreel if they’re distinct.
Process: create IDs in your JDex
First thing to do is create these IDs.
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Fire up your JDex.
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Create 2 new notes:
31.11 Portfolio & showreel* 31.12 CV*You can’t use the
/character in an Obsidian title as the note’s title is the name of the file on disk.It is mandatory to create the JDex entry first. Don’t create file system folders first! This will lead to inconsistency.
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While you’re in your JDex, if you think it’ll help you find these things in the future, add some searchable terms to the note.
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You said that you’ll be updating these artefacts over time. Let’s say annually.
This naturally suggests subfolders named
yyyy, e.g.2024. I’d probably leave the current version of these artefacts at the root of the folder, and move each previous year to ayyyyfolder as required.
Updating artefacts over time
Continuing this question:
I need to create new portfolios each year with examples of updated work
This is where your 50-59 Portfolio of creative outputs comes in. The process is:
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Each (say annual) update of these artefacts is a new
creative outputjob.The first job you create is numbered
50001, the next50002. This allows more than 100 jobs over time. -
Create a new ID in your JDex for the job, and create the folder on disk.
Ideally, you’re starting from a subfolder template.
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Do the creative work in the job folder.
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When the job is finished, copy the final output back to
31.11&31.12, moving last year’s files to a previous-year folder as noted above. -
For a JD power-up
, create a wiki-link from 31.11to the creative job, say50001.Because next year, you’re going to want to remember what you did this year.
As an added bonus, Obsidian’s backlinks will automatically link you from the creative job back to the thing it relates to.
Leave yourself a breadcrumb
Life Admin has 11.71 My sales pitch as a place to put your CV:
The documents you use to sell yourself as a potential employee.
e.g. CV/resume, references, portfolio, LinkedIn profile text.
Drop yourself a note in there to tell yourself that your CV is at SBS.31.12. Then there’ll be no stress if you come looking for it here in the future.
Digital assets
Continuing, theoutermost asks:
As part of my work storyboarding or animating jobs I have tools and assets I use like templates, brushes, fonts that will be used across all jobs I do so should they live in the Library of Creative Inputs…
Absolutely! This is exactly what it’s for. 41 Design elements is the place for stuff like this.
As above, create yourself an ID for each of these types of thing. Here at JDHQ we have 41.11 Typefaces, 41.12 Colours. You might add 41.13 Brushes.
How granular you make these IDs is up to you. See SBS.00.34+OPS9 for more guidance on creating your own IDs, and of course just ask if you’re unsure.
Although as patterns emerge – like this one – we’ll likely add some suggested IDs to the standard system. ↩︎