IDs in the free documentation vs. LAS

Hi there!

It took me a while to purchase the LAS and before I read the free documentation on the website. After looking through the LAS folders I was kind of puzzled: from my understanding it’s like one level shallower than expected. E.g. when explaining IDs the examples are about big vacation trips and every new trip get’s a new ID. This made sense. Now looking at the LAS in comparison all the long trips get put in one folder 15.50. This is of course way easier to handle because I don’t have to take care of updating the JDex Index just because a new trip is planned. On the other hand I am a little worried because the content of the folders can get pretty full with time…

I am not a native speaker so I guess it is a kind of misunderstanding on my part but I thought a new event or object gets a new ID in an category. Instead of putting everything LAS in one area the five main folders should be five areas and the categories are the current IDs.

Does anyone understand my point?

Best regards

Bruno

Hi! Yes, we made a conscious decision to ‘compress’ Life Admin into 1 area and 5 categories.

Over the years I’ve realised that this is almost always the best strategy. It’s the #1 piece of advice I give people who send me their home-built systems for review: merge some things; make them more compact.

This generally makes it easier to find stuff. There are just less places to look. And if we had used 5 areas for the ‘life admin’, now you only have 4 left for the entire rest of your life!

Common mistake when looking at the Life Admin System: assuming that you’re meant to put your whole life in there. You’re not! Only the common stuff that we all share. Only ‘life admin’.

But you still need room for your hobbies, for your side projects, for the community club that you help, for the podcast you start. None of that should be stored at 10-19 Life admin.

(We did create 11.82 for hobbies, but be careful. We wanted there to be some place for those: but if you have a lot of hobbies, they deserve their own area.)

Correction

No: all the short trips get put in one folder, 15.41. Long trips get an ID each: 15.51 Holiday in Greece, 15.52 Long trip to Canada, and so on. See the documentation and examples at 15.50.

Use the date a lot

You will still have some IDs that get busy. For example I used to rent, and I moved a lot. But, no problem:

I use the date like 2026-08-17 a lot in my system. Use it in notes and folders and now you can fit a lot of things into a single ID, and they should still be very easy to find.

Hope that helps?