Curating project-management to your needs, and my J.D/PARA system!

10-19 Concepts 13 Multiple projects
1

Hey. I am confused with the multiple project section (I’ve read it about 50 times over and over).

The idea of J.D is to have a unique decimal for each category, area, note, and file.

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Then why would you re-use the 10-19, 20-29 over and over again inside your projects? Is it not better to have it look more like:
‘100-199 Personal PRO.’
‘101. Project #1.’

I use Alfred to navigate my J.D, so that would be an issue. The project system Johnny proposed seems good for people who navigate inside files manually and have multiple-month-long complex projects.

I haven’t ever worked on such a project. I have little projects which may be part of a “goal”, but they don’t ever take more than a week, so I suppose this is just not for me—it’s for the typical knowledge worker, perhaps? Or software engineers.

It seems that it comes down to making the system your own. I think. I’ll go for 100-109 Personal (instead of 100-199 because I am using an archive for finished projects, and I need at most ten ongoing projects per area, I do not need a hundred.)

I’ll also mentally link the area and resources with projects - 100-109 for Personal PRO from the area 10-19 Personal. Or, 130-139 E-commerce PRO (short for projects which I’ll use as an aid to distinguishing between project and area/resource for the time being till the difference between two and three digits is mentally established) for 30-39 E-commerce area.

This is the system I came up with for myself; I’d like to hear some thoughts and perhaps suggestions to improve it! And also start a discussion on multiple projects system.

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2

DO NOT USE THE PROJECT NUMBERING SYSTEM! :grimacing:

You’re right, this is not for you. If you have ‘little projects’, they just live inside a JD ID.

By my definition something that doesn’t take longer than a week isn’t a ‘project’. It’s just a ‘task’.

You should only use multiple projects if each of those projects is a large piece of work that requires its own AC.ID setup. Otherwise you’re over-complicating a system whose goal is to make things easier.

This is a common source of confusion and when I re-do the system (over Xmas, I keep telling myself, but we’ll see … it’s gotta happen soon) I’ll make this a lot clearer.

No. Just use the basic system as described and pretend like these 3-digit projects don’t exist. Unless I’ve misunderstood your requirements?

3

No. Just use the basic system as described and pretend like these 3-digit projects don’t exist. Unless I’ve misunderstood your requirements?

I like the idea of having a unique ID for each project; it makes it easier to memorise and look up, and the projects are sorted in the same way everywhere. (The title is usually at least a few words)

But perhaps I should have one folder for projects without sorting them within areas. And if the need arises for a long-term complex project (which it eventually will), I suppose I’ll give the system you use a go.

4

Could you give me an idea of what a project means to you? Like how big is it and what sort of activities are you doing? I think that will help me figure out what you need.

For me, a project is a large activity with many many activities. A task is just something I have to do that might have half a dozen activities.

Building a new house is a project. Painting the garage (that’s already attached to your existing house) is a task.

5

For me, a project is a set of tasks linked to a goal with a deadline. That’s also the definition David Allen’s GTD and PARA use.

Some recent personal projects:

  • 1.001 Improve the printing workflow.
  • 1.004 Create an eating schedule optimised for intermittent fasting.
  • 1.005 Organise my productivity system with J.D and PARA.

(Those included 1-15 tasks each, 1.005 took the most, 1.001 the least clearly defined tasks)

Work typically entails researching a particular topic, making sense of the information and putting it into action— for example, market research about what else to import from China, formulating a plan of action, and scheduling and creating agendas for meetings with my partners and subordinates. This project was for my e-com business.

For me, a project is a large activity with many many activities.

For me, that is a goal. An objective to reach via sets of projects or tasks.

I would set a goal to build a new house, set a deadline, attach a set of projects to the goal, and create a plan.

If I have a complex project, I typically split it up into smaller projects. I do that subconsciously; I don’t feel as overwhelmed by a big project.

In retrospect, that’s precisely what I did when building my agency. At first, creating a marketing agency was a project, but as I did my work, it lacked explicit feedback loops of making progress, and with time the projects and tasks got smaller and smaller so as not to feel so overwhelmed. I started to split my work up into “small biteable chunks”. It was all a subconscious process; I only just realised I had done that after thinking about it.

P.S. I’m an entrepreneur and undertake various ventures where I see an opportunity; I mostly do e-com and marketing. My work is mainly research, finding and sensing new opportunities, organising, and putting information into action.

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6

Hey, actually. I just set on a new complex project of building a home office! I created a tab group, Obsidian and file folder for it: 101-109 Building a Home Office. (100. Projects) is my projects folder; I use 100.1 and 100.2 for new projects, so I figured I do 101-109 for this more complex project. I’d like to hear what you think!