JD and notes - why…?

J.D Concepts
1

Hallo.

Since I originally got into this (and have stuck with numbering), JD seems to have morphed from being simply about numbering and organisation to incorporating a concept of “notes”.

Aside from 11.07 Keeping notes • Johnny.Decimal , where can I find a write-up on… why?

Once upon a time, I kept my index in Notion (I like the colour, toggles, emojis and hyperlinking to different endpoints). Now I have rebuilt a hierarchical bullet list in Obsidian, in a “00-09 Systems” vault. I’m reorganising my multiple vaults to correspond to JD numbering - but I will have multiple vaults. Seems like I should use the “00-09 Systems” vault to incorporate “00 Index” and any notes. It seems that the current JD discipline would have me create note files out of my bullet list items, fill them with metadata and store them in a corresponding file structure (creating a need to keep these to things in sync).

But Obsidian is not my device(s) filesystem(s). As I use iCloud Drive sync for Obsidian, each Obsidian vault is sitting in the Obsidian folder in iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive is not my primary file store. I also use Google Drive with JD numbering, Dropbox, local storage on multiple devices, apps with their own internal storage etc.

Anyway, the Obsidian issue is also different from the “why notes?” Issue.

Are we now saying the JDex is both a single “00.00 Index” list and a collection of notes in a corresponding file structure?

Are JD “notes” supposed to be signposts to your stuff, including explanations about any storage rationale? Meta info about the thing? With different files scattered across different systems, potentially it would be useful for me to call up a note with signposts to relevant places. Alas, cross-linking across vaults is also not possible.

But it feels like JD is now bordering on PKM itself - something which I’m pretty well versed in (and, as I said, I use JD principles in that), but which I had bargained for being threaded into JDex itself.

At 11.07 Keeping notes • Johnny.Decimal , I see metadata - but I also see, essentially, material content. I thought the JD index was never supposed to be for the work itself (blog post ideas in a JD note file). I don’t know how I’d fight the temptation to do the work close to the index, in the “00-09 Systems” vault…

11.05 literally says “your filesystem is not your JDex”. So why am I seeing a task list for “Move into Canberra” in Johnny’s “12.11 Official documents” and a reminder to blog about sausages in Johnny’s “14.31 My blog”? This isn’t meta info about those things…

I haven’t found a good articulation of how to square it all.

Seems to me that this combination of JD-and-index-and-notes would work fine if everything’s integrated - if you have just one huge filesystem on the same device. The JDex file can sit at the top and happily hyperlink to everything. But it doesn’t really account well for either 1) index separate from actual work folders, 2) multiple vaults or 3) multiple devices.

Thanks!

2

Did you see this post last week?

I was thinking about this just earlier today. Last week at work I reckon I:

  • Created/edited <10 files.
  • Created/edited ~20,000 words across 20 JDex entries.

Clearly I work more in ‘information’ than I do ‘files’. And that information is just my JDex. It’s not some other place.

So much so that the next iteration of the JD website will deëmphasise the notion of organising files in favour of organising information.

This is definitely a bit of a shift, and I’m happy to go deeper. I’m just about knocking off now (beer is in hand) so this is quick response vs. deeply considered. :clinking_beer_mugs:

3

I’m here for applying JD to PKM - and, in fact, I suppose, have been doing so for some time, with varying success. I apply JD numbering to many walks of life, and many pools of information (because I accept that I don’t/can’t store everything in one place)). The numbers are the familiar anchors, wherever - I’m very keen on using those fixed anchors in as many places as possible. I already use them in several Obsidian vaults.

But, from experience, you quickly run up against some challenges applying IDs to PKM. PKM isn’t a controlled vocabulary in the same way an indexing system is - there’s a tension between pre-reserving IDs for topics you already know about, and leaning in to exploring and documenting new ideas, which is the heart of PKM.

Secondly, perhaps, with Obsidian, many people on the forums over the years ask the classic question: “One vault or multiple?” Despite an initial wish at the outset a few years ago, I settled on the practicality of multiple distinct vaults for discrete areas - one mega-vault felt very unwieldy…

So, I don’t know what that disconnection means for the new-wave concept of a JDex as a PKM.

Similarly (thirdly?), I’m also not going to say “Now ALL my files and notes are just Obsidian vault/s.” That would be what I have to do to get them syncing across Mac and iPad through Obsidian… put them in the Obsidian folder in iCloud Drive.

4

Totally. And in many cases, I’d say your ‘PKM’ might just be a single ID in your system. And in there you might have an entire vault of ‘knowledge’ which you build out as you work your way through your library’s section on French feudalism. Or whatever.

But I don’t think that’s the default case. I don’t think most people are using their computers that way. I think most people, to the original question, are keeping notes about moving house and going to the physio and similarly mundane, daily stuff.

That note – the example shown at 11.07 where I keep details about my real estate agent’s phone number as I move house – absolutely neatly fits within that ID. I don’t see any tension there; in fact, the opposite. I think you’d be mad not to store it there. Where else would it be?

Why not? Where else are they going to be? (Replacing ‘Obsidian’ with anyone’s note app of choice.)

5

In my case…

00-09 Systems
- 00 Index
- 01 Intention
- 02 Productivity
- 03 Personal Information Management
- 04 Personal Knowledge Management
- 05 Resources
10-19 Mind
20-20 Body
30-39 Career
40-49 Side projects
50-59 Child
60-69 Family
70-79 Home and car
80-89 Connection
90-90 Money and admin

Yes. My 04 is sort of the “PKM” practice that people online enjoy YouTubing about… book notes, concepts, ideas… about psychology, etc etc. Not only is PKM not records management; it’s active learning… starting with input, going through synthesis and output.

The rest are my life Areas. My house-moving notes would be in 7X.XX.

I once tried applying in 04 IDs corresponding to the JDex - but, as discussed, it’s too limiting, and probably the wrong way around to think about it. Any stuff I intellectualise in 04 which I want to store in/move to substantive areas for recording, I can - eg. I might intellectualise my Personality types in Personal Knowledge Management.

  • I’m not sure prepared to put all my everything inside one app anymore, much less leave it at risk to the robustness of iCloud Drive’s syncing.
  • It’s not just a choice to “use Obsidian” or not; it’s a choice whether to put ALL your files in an Obsidian vault or not.
  • The premise of Obsidian itself is that you shouldn’t have to rely on Obsidian.
  • I went through an early phase of believing that everything should be in a single vault, but quickly realised keeping multiple discrete vaults allows for more focus and efficiency.
  • Another blocker is my historic use of Google Drive. I have years’ worth of files there in Google’s proprietary format, including a lot of everyday notes. In fact, right now, Google Drive is the only file store where I used a complete JD system.
  • One of my goals is just to see if I can return to a world of computer filesystem, with files plaintext as much as possible.
  • Unfortunately, that’s complicated by my wish to also use lots of my stuff on my iPad, as well as by the reality of modern app-based paradigms.
  • While it’s possible to locate an Obsidian vault anywhere on a computer filesystem, the only way to get it to sync with iPad (other than through GitHub and Obsidian Sync) is through iCloud Drive, ie by storing all vaults in the Obsidian folder of iCloud Drive.

I might have diverged from the question of doing everything in the index here. I don’t quite know how to square it all.

6

I understand where you’re coming from, but in the technology of today I think having a bunch of Markdown files synchronised by your platform’s built-in cloud service is about as ‘pure’ as you’re ever going to get.

Of course the trick to avoiding Obsidian lock-in is not to fill it up with plugins. I use it basically as it comes. So my Markdown files are truly portable.

(My one exception is the use of Advanced URI which lets me link to ^blocks which I find more reliable than linking to the title/header of a note, because those things are just words and can change. But even still, in a world without Obsidian I could plain-text-search those.)

Is there a trick to not using some sort of sync service? I don’t think there is. That’s one you just have to ‘suck up’ as we say in Australia.

7

Okay, so…

Notes

  • JDex “notes” are metadata / signposts?
  • JDex “notes” can also be the work itself?

11.05 The JDex • Johnny.Decimal :

The title is the index entry. The rest of the note can be blank.

You must do this before you create a folder in your file system, email, or anywhere else. Creating the note is creating the new ID.

What is the point of creating a blank note, especially if there is an index file with the ID entry added?

Index

What’s the purpose of the JDex index list file (“00.00 Index”) anymore?

Or are we saying, if the JDex is a collection of notes in a well-organised ID system, there’s no need for an index file?

Other

Isn’t ^block reference linking natively supported?

That plugin can also be used to a) open other vaults and, theoretically, b), with Hookmark, opening files folders outside of Obsidian. a) would support the situation where my index (in fact, my whole 00-09 Systems) remains a separate vault. Although neither of those would scale well to iPadOS for me.

8

Yes!

You choose: one or the other.

  • Many notes, each note representing an ID, or
  • A single ‘index file’.

I prefer the former, because that note, initially blank, becomes filled out with a bunch of text over time. And thus a JDex grows.

9

I seeeeee.

Coming from the index file-centric heritage, that wasn’t obvious.

Hmm, I’ll have to think of the way ahead. I think all options in a multi-device reality are imperfect, but I’ll always come back to the numbers being their own anchoring function.

I do like the idea of signposting to from a number to the various places I may find the expressions of that thing.

Evolution, I suppose.

As a separate precursor, one day, I’d love to progressively convert Google Drive files to local open file types. GD is just so ubiquitous, though, especially for collaboration.

Cheers, Johnny.

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