Customizing the standard zeros

J.D Concepts
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Hey JD people! (JD’ers doesn’t sound quite right)

It’s been awhile since I was last active here, but consider that a testament to the system’s effectiveness — I’ve been able to stay organized with confidence ever since going through the workbook and workshop! :+1: You can say I’m a success story.

I still check in with the community periodically and enjoy keeping up with the discussions and picking up new insights or refinements that have emerged since my last visit.

The “standard” zeros

I’ll cut to the chase: I want to discuss the standard zeros, which have evolved somewhat since I finalized my JD system. I admittedly mostly ignored the concept at the time, but now I see how useful they can be.

First off, I’m blown away by Simone’s alternate layout for the standard zeros. If you’re an efficiency nut like me, it’s very impressive work. I’ve decided to implement it in my own JD system.

However, some of the predefined standards aren’t the best fit for me. Rather than discussing alternate layouts (which Simone has already covered brilliantly), I’d love to explore alternate standard specifications—in other words, what kinds of things are standard.

Custom standard zeros

For example, I find that .03 To-dos & checklists and .04 Bookmarks, links, & URLs aren’t strictly necessary for my workflow, as these things live elsewhere in my system. Alternatively, these and other items could be covered by a broader “Resources” standard zero. If you’re familiar with Tiago Forte’s PARA system, .08 Resources looks nice next to .09 Archive.

Currently, I’m exploring the idea of using these for my standard zeros:

  • .00 Index — Standard
  • .01 Inbox — Standard
  • .02 WIP — Short for standard: “Work in progress”
  • 03 Backburner — Like WIP, but for when something feels “dormant” to minimize WIP clutter
  • 04 Someday — Standard, I just changed the numbering
  • .08 Resources — Could handle to-dos, checklists, bookmarks/links/URLs, templates, among other things; perhaps that’s too broad (potential downside)
  • .09 Archive — Standard

Take this with a grain of salt. I haven’t implemented these changes yet, so I can’t vouch for them in practice.

Questions

Even if you stick with the standard standard zeros, there’s still room for expansion (e.g., .06 and .07). I’m curious what others have used these auxiliary standard zeros for.

Here are my questions:

  • Have you customized the standard zeros to better suit your workflow?
  • What (if anything) do use the auxiliary standard zeros for?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

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Yes, I use the standard zeroes, too, and I did customize them. I kept them generally the same from home to work so I didn’t confuse myself! .03 To-dos & checklists I changed to .03 Master Lists. I don’t use to dos or checklists, but I have a master list of links and instructions that I paste into Teams or emails. .05 Templates-- Yup, need this one everywhere. .08 Someday I use at home for story ideas for my fiction writing. No use for that work. It’s either now or in the backburn. I didn’t put the backburn in the zeroes. Made more sense to me put at the end of folder sequence, where I could get to them but didn’t have to look at it all the time.

I’ve also done PARA before. It had problems with it, being too generic. It became a junk drawer of sorts. Some of the things–particularly with my fiction writing–did not fit anywhere in PARA. Resources I found nearly useless. It was just a place to park things that I didn’t know what to do with.

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Thanks @LAdams — it’s helpful to know how you’ve approached this. I agree that templates is necessary pretty much everywhere. In the approach I shared, I’d have a folder for templates in .08 Resources: .08 Resources/Templates/. Understandable why you put your backburner at the end of the folder sequence — nice place for it.

I also agree that PARA is a bit too generic. But I actually like the idea of a resources folder. I’m currently reading “The Personal Efficiency Program” (2008; 4th ed.) by K. Gleeson, and the organization system described therein includes three major sections: “Working”, “Reference”, and “Archive”. “Reference” reminds me of “Resources” in PARA. I suspect “Areas” in PARA is an attempt to adapt the mostly white-collar work approach described in Gleeson to a broader personal organization system including life outside work. Regardless, the Working/Reference/Archive paradigm seems fairly “standard”.

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I’m currently in the design phase of a JD system on sharepoint at work. Among different types of documentation, we also store internal procedures and instructions. My working draft of our future standard zeroes are as follows:

xx.00 index
xx.01 inbox
xx.02 checklists
xx.03 templates
xx.04 drafts
xx.05 masters
xx.09 archive

The idea is that a procedure/instruction’s life is born at the inbox (01), then there is a standardized workflow for how to mature the document for “public” access outside the standard zero area via checklists (02). There is usually some kind of template (03) involved, then you start your draft (04), which will turn into a editable master (05), that is exported as a pdf outside the standard zero area (the active version). When obsolete, the document is archived (09).

This alternative structure aids the natural life progression of a document. I came up with this idea just yesterday, and have no clue if it makes sense :slight_smile:

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My office (via a brain-storming slack discussion) came up with a similar life-cycle but we have it attached to the active version rather than in the zeros. I see the appeal of your method…but I also see the appeal of ours.

Screenshot 2025-03-15 at 10.37.05 AM
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Great idea. Makes a ton of sense.

Also I think I’ll re-shape the standard IDs based on this post, so thanks. Perfect timing, just in time to influence the small business system.

The current system has 02 WIP which I don’t like/use, and 04 Bookmarks, URLs, links which I can see use for, but not at 04. I rarely use it. I’m going to compress the structure down to:

  • 00 Index
  • 01 Inbox
  • 02 Patterns & templates (re-usable anything)
  • 03 Ops manuals (i.e. to-do, checklists)
  • 09 Archive

…and just leave the others blank for now.

Update: flipped 02 & 03 to match yours.

2 Likes
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Funny, I started to use 02 WIP heavily in the recent time. But I guess I’ll just keep it. :wink:
As for the other changes I really like “patterns and templates” and also “ops manuals”

Edit: Come to think of it looking through my folders I quite often have a 03 Emergency manuals but maybe I should move these under one umbrella… :thinking:

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Interesting. Can you tell us more?

I think Inbox and WIP are essentially the same. Or close enough to be. So I see the requirement for that sort of working area, but I think I’d just update the guidance to say that this is what the inbox is for.

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Genius!

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Interesting. Can you tell us more?

Sure. :slight_smile:

For me Inbox is really for things that are just sorted away as soon as feasible. On the contrary I started to use WIP for things that are in flight but don’t have an ID [yet]. There are categories i.e. Travel in which I don’t use it because every planned tour gets an ID immediatly but in others I often have stuff that would go beneath a concrete ID if it is either finished or in a more advanced state. Some examples:

  1. building up and configuring an raspberry pi for some stuff at home
    • moves to the ID for computers 'n so if assembled and done
  2. research solar panels for the balcony and contact landlord about it
    • sadly he is an … so it will move to the archive
  3. collect some images for creating a foto puzzle as a present
    • moves to ID after things have been sorted out and work continues there
  4. dumping and re-encoding of movie data from dvd or bluray or from the net
    • moves to appropriate ID for movies or series afterwards
  5. fight log with beaucracy for renewal of some papers / licenses
    • moves to appropriate ID once on track

Now, after I wrote all this, it becomes clear to me that I only use the WIP in some categories not even remotely in all. However I find it supports me by easing mental load to not having to worry about the ID until I know the project will or won’t be dumped. But maybe this will change I don’t know yet.

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After having worked on organisation for a bit more now while keeping this discussion in mind. I agree now that my distinction between inbox and wip is too artifical. It makes sense to merge these two now also for me. Thanks for helping me declutter my stuff. :hugs:

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Aha lovely, thanks for the feedback.

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I went through the exact same process a few months ago.

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