Johnny.Decimal as a system of universal tags

10-19 Concepts
1

I might be completely off base here, and I’m sorry if it’s dumb.
I was reading about the academia problem, and in implementing JD myself (I am no scholar, just a retail manager) I’ve noticed something. What if, instead of treating IDs as endpoints, as destinations, we tread them as tags for a multitude of things in a wide range of applications?

Your index becomes exactly that. An index of everything, across all the systems you have. But sometimes, in the index, at 14.04, you have a little note that tells you [In use as tag in Zotero, Akiflow]

When you go to Akiflow, your task manager of choice, 14.04 is a tag for all tasks relating to 14.04.

You go to Zotero, and 14.04 is a tag for all the research pertaining to 14.04.

14.04 might be a project!..it also might be a subject you’re currently tracking.

It would allow breathing room when the index is restrictive, and become the One Index to Rule Them All.

Why I’m thinking about this is that in our lives, we have many many apps, many services, and our data doesn’t live in one place. Additionally, the more time passes, the less we are dealing with files, and the more we are dealing with data.

JD as a universal tag system could be the answer to taming the wide ranging data web our lives our composed of. A way to tame all the discrete data units that come into our lives on the daily.

It would make changes like for examples, tasks wouldn’t go into the index. It would use the index. If it makes sense.

As long as the index is filled properly with [where data is now], it should allow you to tame everything, to organize properly, and the index would still be exactly that. An index for your life.

What do you think? Am I insane?

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2

This was also my initial thought, but ultimately decided against it for a couple of reasons:

  1. Not every app I use to store information supports tags. Those that do still handle tags and search differently; for example, some of my apps support nested tags while others don’t. This makes it hard to keep a consistent system across locations. All of the apps I use, however, support folders or collections.
  2. I still have to put everything somewhere. Tagging my projects can be helpful in finding them later, but where do they live?

I still think this is a neat approach that can work for some users, and I think you’re spot on with the idea that we’re dealing less with files and more with data.

I personally stuck with a folder-based system – predominantly built on object types so there is less overlap – with my index living in Obsidian. That makes it easy for me to link [[22.31 Helpful Spreadsheet]] to [[34.11 Major Project]] and [[34.12 Small Project]]. Even though the spreadsheet lives in Drive and the projects live in Todoist, if I start from my index, it functions similarly to what you’re describing (if I’m reading you right).

3

There are no dumb ideas here!

This is an interesting idea that we’ve spoken about a little bit. It seems to come up more on Discord than it does here.

I’ve written about it here:

But as @vics notes, you still need to store your stuff somewhere.

I wonder … what if your JD system was your system. And it was used to store your files.

And some of your IDs were tags. Perhaps you use the .90-.99 range for tags? Keep them out of the way?

I could see that working … because there clearly is some need for tags in some scenarios.

4

I use this a tiny bit, here’s why:

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I use folders to store types of documents, so all articles are in 17.21. But they get a 17.1xx tag or multiple based on their subject. Some papers are about more subjects. (Tags in OneDrive means just a [17.101] in the doc title.)

I don’t know what @johnnydecimal thinks about this.

5

The problem with having tags separate, as I see it anyway, is that we’re duplicating things in the index and everywhere.

For example:
14.04 points to MegaImportantProject. In it you have your data, then in your file structure there’s 14.04. So far, it’s consistent. But then in your task app and calendar, it’s 99.08, which is the tag assigned to 14.04.

Or am I thinking of this completely wrong?

@_FJ This is nice, I like the idea that the tags are at least at the same place as their subject.

I think it’s because I come from outliners. I’m used to tagging everything and searching for that tag to have all I’ve written about pop up in sequential form. I like the paradigm of a daily page where you dump the data you’re gathering through the day and the tags sort all of that for you. That’s why I think of JD as a set of tags I think. I’m not so used to dealing with a rigid structure.

There’s also the idea of inbox and fleeting notes vs permanent notes that’s been percolating in my mind since starting JD. I feel like I need to use 00.01 as an Inbox that gathers all things through the day, and then dispatch stuff at the end of each day.

I might in the end try to adapt JD to outliners. I’ll have to think about it hahaha.

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