I just started this week with J.D and am now building up my system.
One question I came up with: Where do people store their Obsidian notes (metadata) - especially the one that contains information about the system? Such as index and more metadata.
For me it makes sense to have it in the “00-09” area and in there in for example “02 Notes” and then in “02.01 Obsidian”.
Does it make sense to you? That folder by itself includes the whole hierarchy of the J.D system again. I don’t mind having subfolders inside the ID, because an ID is a thing and can consist of everything that belongs to that “thing”.
Or do you store these metadata somewhere very different, so that you have data and metadata more isolated? But then you might come up with the discussion about metadata and data - is it not the same at the end of the day?
I struggled with this myself. I settled on “my obsidian folder, including JD index is a project and goes in my project folder”. It requires physical action to build and maintain a JD system.
My Obsidian vault is a place to organize my thinking, notes, and conclusions. But my file-system is where I organize the result.
In that way, yes 00.00 can be my Index but it’s a single file/folder. There’s no structure there.
00-09 System/00 Index/00.00 Index can exist.
20-29 Projects/21-Clarity/21.20-Obsidian/00.00 Notes about my Index can also exist without replication of the structure. I use root IDs as a notebook/logbook. So 00.00 is just an Index of all thoughts on the topic.
20-29 Projects/21-Clarity/21.20-Obsidian/00.00a My first attempt at a JD system and thoughts about it I then use general zettelkasten naming principles to create a sub-note where my actual notes and ideas now begin to be written.
This way I create a “notebook” per ID.
I understand that you want to be more organized with a folder system inside Obsidian, but my thinking above is about the separation of thinking and notes from the files the notes are about.
Especially because storing an Obsidian vault in 00.00 means there’s high potential for irrelevant notes ending up there. Or that you now have to manage multiple vaults just to keep 00.00 clean.
Before moving to AnyType I also struggled with this. I wanted my vault within the system, because my system includes all files that are not program files. No ~/Documents for me.
My suggestion is: anywhere that makes sense to you—but not00-09 System/00 Index. I tried this, but it felt wrong because it contained all my writing/notes/“second brain,” not just my Index.
I’m a writer, so I chose 30-39 Art/31 Writing/31.00 Obsidian (using xx.00 since it’s “meta”). If 02 Notes works for you, do that!
As you mentioned, 30-39 Art/31 Writing/31.00 Obsidian/00-09 System/00 Index/00.00 Index.md looks cumbersome. But I never navigated to this path or even saw it. I just opened Obsidian to edit my Obsidian files, which are organized in a file tree that mirrors my Decimal system.
I’ve read discussions on whether one can store all files in the Obsidian folder structure alongside the .md files. This would avoid the problem of a second, identical file system just for Obsidian living inside your file system. But while the answer is technically yes, Obsidian doesn’t like it. It becomes extremely slow and unstable. I was scared away from doing this.
