My System based on J.D with a bit of PARA and personalization

10-19 Concepts 14 Build your system
1

The Main root structure of my system is this:

.
└── root
    ├── 00 System       // Meta, related to organization of this system.
    ├── 01 Personal     // General stuff, documents realated to my life (not work related).
    ├── 02 Hobbies      // Data realated to my hobbies in general (articles, websites, documents)
    ├── 03 Work         // Data related to my career, work and business activities. 
    ├── 04 Media        // Videos, Photos, Books and the like
    ├── 05 Projects     // Specific projects within my hobbies or just self contained projects
    ├── 06 Software     // Software binaries, fonts, scripts, tools, isos, torrents etc
    ├── 07 BLANK        // Currently unused, reserved for future needs
    ├── 08 BLANK        // Currently unused, reserved for future needs
    ├── 09 Backup       // Staging area, I symlink the above categories here, then wrap up to tar/zip files weekly/monthly with cron
    ├── X BLANK         // Currently unused, reserved for future needs
    ├── Y BLANK         // Currently unused, reserved for future needs
    └── Z Archive       // Holds expired data from Categories 0-8.

Digging deeper I use these subfolders:

.
└── root
    ├── 00 System
    │   ├── 000 Meta........................// Index of this structure, copy of this empty file structure, etc
    │   ├── 001 Inbox.......................// Files to sort, old and disordered stuff goes here to be sorted in due course.
    │   ├── 002 Notes.......................// just for simple notes on things, I keep a proper notes system in other apps
    │   ├── 003 Todo........................// Notes for urgent/current things (symlinking to important current stuff)
    │   ├── 004 Someday.....................// Future plans, ideas to experiment with regarding this system, NAS etc
    │   ├── 090 Backup......................// symlinks to the above (see section 9)
    │   └── 099 Archive.....................// Dump for expired files or stuff I just want to hide away and not see
    ├── 01 Personal
    │   ├── 100 Meta
    │   ├── 110 Me..........................// General things about me, Identity documents, birth certificate, will, etc
    │   ├── 111 Health......................// Medical records, etc
    │   ├── 112 Fitness.....................// Fitbit records, gym logs, routines
    │   ├── 115 Education School 1..........// School reports , certificates, admin, etc
    │   ├── 116 Education University 1......// I'm past university now so this is just admin stuff.
    │   ├── 117 Education University 2......// if I was still in uni I'd use Cat 7 below to create better structure (eg notes etc).
    │   ├── 120 People......................// General family stuff
    │   │   ├── Mum.........................// subfolders specifically for family members/friends
    │   │   ├── Dad
    │   │   ├── Grandparents
    │   │   ├── Sister 1
    │   │   ├── Sister 2
    │   │   └── Friend 1
    │   ├── 130 Home Country 1..............// I live abroad, this holds general stuff for my birth country
    │   ├── 131 City 1......................// matters related to the first city I lived in
    │   ├── 132 City 2......................// matters related to the second city I lived in
    │   ├── 140 Home Country 2..............// My adopted second country, general matters
    │   ├── 141 Immigration Country 2.......// Matters related to immigration to that country, visas, applications, letters etc
    │   ├── 142 City 1
    │   ├── 143 City 2
    │   ├── 150 Travel......................// travel (bookings, receipts, etc)
    │   │   └── yyyy_tripName...............// I try to not use subfolders too much but this is a logical extension.
    │   ├── 160 Finances....................// Very general finance (probably empty, or used for files to sort later)
    │   ├── 161 Taxes
    │   │   └── yyyy_country
    │   ├── 162 Bills.......................// Life's too short for most of this, but there are some worth keeping.
    │   │   └── company
    │   ├── 163 Banking Country 1...........// General documents related to finance in this country
    │   │   └── Bank 1......................// Specific admin related to this bank (statements, letters, etc)
    │   ├── 164 Banking Country 2
    │   │   ├── Bank 1
    │   │   └── Bank 2
    │   ├── 165 Mortgage
    │   │   ├── Lender 1
    │   │   └── Lender 2....................// refinance/renewal, keep different lender's documents separate
    │   ├── 166 Investment..................// Share certificates, etc
    │   ├── 167 Insurance...................// Claims, documents, letters, bills
    │   ├── 170 Retirement..................// Admin related to pensions etc (not for retirement plans, they would be category 5!)
    │   ├── 180 Legal.......................// Parking tickets and the like as well as communications with lawyers/solicitors. 
    │   ├── 190 Backup......................// Symlinks to the above (see section 9)
    │   └── 199 Archive.....................// Dump for expired files or stuff I just want to hide away and not see
    ├── 02 Hobbies
    │   ├── 200 Meta
    │   ├── 201 Code
    │   ├── 202 Board Games
    │   ├── 203 Painting
    │   ├── 204 Writing
    │   ├── 290 Backup
    │   └── 299 Archive
    ├── 03 Work
    │   ├── 300 Meta
    │   ├── 301 Career
    │   ├── 302 Job Applications
    │   ├── 310 Company 1
    │   ├── 320 Company 2
    │   ├── 330 Company 3
    │   ├── 340 Company 4
    │   ├── 390 Backup
    │   └── 399 Archive
    ├── 04 Media
    │   ├── 400 Meta........................// organisation, plans for future storage expansion etc. 
    │   ├── 410 Music
    │   │   └── artist
    │   ├── 411 Audiobooks
    │   │   └── author
    │   ├── 412 Podcasts
    │   ├── 413 Recordings
    │   ├── 420 Photos......................// Photos I put the effort to organize in to neat folders (eg vacations)
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_event
    │   ├── 421 Wallpapers
    │   ├── 422 Screenshots
    │   ├── 423 Memes
    │   ├── 424 Other Photos................// Photos I don't really need/want to organize in to neat folders
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm
    │   ├── 430 Books.......................// I try to keep this simple but you can make rabbit holes of complexity here...
    │   │   ├── Fiction
    │   │   │   └── author_title
    │   │   └── Non Fiction
    │   │       └── author_title 
    │   ├── 431 Comics
    │   ├── 432 Academic Papers
    │   ├── 433 PDFs........................// Not super happy with this one, but it's there if I really cant find a better home
    │   ├── 440 Movies
    │   ├── 450 TV Shows
    │   ├── 460 Web.........................// Media downloaded from web that doesn't fit in to any other categories
    │   ├── 461 Youtube.....................// yt-dl rips
    │   ├── 490 Backup......................// Generally only backup the most treasured/irreplaceable stuff here (Photos etc)
    │   └── 499 Archive
    ├── 05 Projects
    │   ├── 500 Meta
    │   ├── 501 Project 1
    │   ├── 502 Project 2
    │   ├── 580 Retirement..................// Extremely long-term plans/projects. I've gotta research buying that sailboat ;)
    │   ├── 590 Backup
    │   └── 599 Archive
    ├── 06 Software
    │   ├── 600 Meta
    │   ├── 601 Software
    │   ├── 602 Games
    │   ├── 603 Applications Mac
    │   ├── 604 Applications Linux
    │   ├── 605 Applications Docker
    │   ├── 606 Fonts
    │   ├── 607 Icons
    │   ├── 608 Drivers
    │   ├── 609 Scripts Shell
    │   ├── 610 Scripts Python
    │   ├── 611 Scripts Other
    │   ├── 612 Licenses
    │   ├── 613 Torrents
    │   ├── 614 Manuals
    │   ├── 615 Passwords.................// KeepassXC backups
    │   ├── 690 Backup
    │   └── 699 Archive
    ├── 07 RESERVED FOR FUTURE
    ├── 08 RESERVED FOR FUTURE
    ├── 09 Backup
    │   ├── 900 Synology NAS
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm...................// Staging area for backups of above, the folder contains symlinks of the sub secion backups
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar.....// de-ref'd tar generated at 00:00 on 28th day of month (by cron, then moved to cloud)
    │   ├── 910 Macbook...................// syncthing backups of devices, still working out the details of this
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar
    │   ├── 920 Phone 1
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar
    │   ├── 921 Phone 2
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar
    │   ├── 930 MacMini MacOS
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar
    │   ├── 940 MacMini Linux
    │   │   ├── yyyy_mm
    │   │   └── yyyy_mm_dd_device.tar
    │   └── 950 Email......................// Periodic pulls from Gmail to keep in cold storage.
    │       ├── yyyy_mm
    │       └── yyyy_mm_dd_gmail.tar
    ├── X RESERVED FOR FUTURE
    ├── Y RESERVED FOR FUTURE
    └── Z Archive
        ├── Z00 System
        ├── Z01 Personal Life
        ├── Z02 Hobbies
        ├── Z03 Work
        ├── Z04 Media
        ├── Z05 Projects
        ├── Z06 Software
        ├── Z80 Email
        ├── Z90 Backup
        └── Z99 Archive
  • Each section has *00 (Meta), *90 (Backup) and *(99) Archive folders
  • I like to have the parent group number as part of the subfolder number (eg 161 Taxes, rather than just 61 Taxes).
  • I don’t like to use decimals or hyphens in file names, it seems unneeded to me. I like it visually cleaner.
  • I’m still figuring out my backup system but it basically involves lots of symlinks and then a cron task that kicks off a tar process (once a month a the moment but maybe once a week is better). The dereferenced tar pulls it all together, removing symlinks, into one simple archive that can be uploaded to some kind of cloud backup (wasabi or glacier type thing) and local cold storage (a basic HDD drive backup).
6 Likes
2

Super neat, thanks for sharing.

Curious why you don’t just do a boring old backup using something like Arq or Backblaze or [insert other]?

I was a Backblaze user for years but their restore interface is janky as. Arq is delightful, and I’ve switched 100%. I have a 3-hourly backup pointing to a local Synology and a 7-hourly backup pointing to Arq’s cloud service which is something like $70/year for 1TB.

Most of the files I care about are stored in iCloud so they’re cloud-synchronised immediately. My dev folder isn’t there but I git push it often enough.

I might have Time Machine running but as an also-ran. I got sick of it telling me that my backup was corrupt and that it needed to start again.

All of this assumes you’re on a Mac/Windows, sounds like you might be running a Linux flavour?

3

Rusty, this is very good work that you are presenting to us. I thank you immensely for having done so, and thanks to you, I have finally found what meets my needs.

4

Thank you for sharing, this is very helpful. I really like the tree formatting as a way to map out and plan my own system. Did you just copy paste this from somewhere or is there a way I can easily use a template to make my own?

5

I like this one but if you search for ASCII tree generator you’ll find a bunch.

1 Like
6

perfect! thank you so much