Need some help flattening multiple layers, but also keeping things easy to find

The Johnny.Decimal system Concepts
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I’m not sure the idea of “take your time with it” was meant to this extend… but here we are!
I started laying out my system at the end of March. I made great strides in the area 10-19 Personal and administration and that one has been working really well!

However my area 20-29 Hobbies… has not.
I’ve been sort of paralyzed about it…

I’ve made a handful of categories that made sense to me.
21 Games
22 Thinking (loose translation)
23 Crafts (loose translation)
24 Writings
25 Roleplay

Categories 22-25 don’t have much going on in them, so I haven’t really bothered with them very much.
However 21 Games is something I do wish to have organized and working for me…

Currently it has 21.00 INBOX with everything stuffed into it.
It has 31 subfolders, just game names, which have more folders underneath them.
The problem comes in that 29 of those folders are pretty simple, they contain videos and screenshots (memories essentially). However 2 of them… or I should say 3, but we’ll get there, do not.

One of them is World of Warcraft. And actually I have two folders. One is named World of Warcraft, and the other is named WoW Quick Find. Which should give a slight hint as to my issue :smiley:
For WoW I have screenshots and videos just like the other games, but they are actually in subfolders by year-month. And then we have more files and subfolders :smiley:
Notes, PDF’s of official stories, excel sheets, specific folders for specific reference screenshots (so not memories).
It’s a mess, hence WoW Quick Find to easily find the things I need the most.

As I was typing all this and thereby gathering my thoughts it occurred to me that actually the answer is pretty simple. Each game gets it’s own ID and for those games where I need some distinction I could use Extend at the end.
Not because I technically need the space, but to make it easier to use the system.
I can also consider multiple ID’s for a game, but I fear the ID’s might drift apart or I have a bunch of unused ones.

Let’s explore some options…

21.01 World of Warcraft
21.01+01 WoW Addon
21.01+02 WoW Reference
21.01+03 WoW Housing

21.01 World of Warcraft
21.02 Some other game
21.03 WoW Reference
21.04 Some other game
21.05 WoW Housing
21.06 WoW Addon

21.01-09 World of Warcraft
21.01 WoW Screenshots & videos
21.02 WoW Reference
21.03 WoW Housing
21.04 WoW Addon
21.10 Some other game

I quite like the look of the last one actually. However I’m a little bit scared of running out of ID’s this way. Both for the WoW header itself, as for games in general. (then again I “only” have 31 games currently)

Though it has been very helpful to just write this down, I feel I’m still not quite satisfied with the end result and wonder if there’s a better way.
Perhaps I need a split between active and archived games?? :anxious_face_with_sweat:
I notice my thoughts keep going in circles…

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated :slight_smile:

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Disclaimer: I’m not into these games so I don’t understand their general ‘shape’.

But it sure feels to me like WoW has earned its own category? And I wonder if Games has earned its own area? That’s what they feel like: an area of your life. They feel significant enough? And as you’ve still got loads of room free, hey, why not use it.

Because then we’re back to classic Johnny.Decimal like it’s 2010. You identified this yourself: just create a new ID for each game.

I asked over in Discord as there are people there who do WoW so you might get more help over there. Here’s one response, from the mighty Raven.

If I was going to do anything along the lines of what they have presented, I’d actually probably do the missing 4th option, which is extend the end by game, so have

21.01 Game Screenshots & Videos
  21.01+WoW
  21.01+LoL
  21.01+CoD
21.02 Game Reference
  21.01+WoW
  21.01+EVE
21.03 Game Mods & Addons
  21.01+WoW
  21.01+DOS2
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Well if you put it like that…
I think you are very much right about that. I gave it some thought and indeed decided to go with a games area and then different categories.

In regards to the missing 4th option, my brain goes game > content and not content > game.
Otherwise it would have been a good idea. Especially because most of the games would only be in the screenshots and video ID.

So here’s what I end up with.

20-29 Games
    21 World of Warcraft
    ...
    29 Screenshots and videos
        29.01 World of Warcraft
            2026-01
            2026-02
            ...
30-39 Hobbies

That may seem a bit weird, but that would work really well for me. It would make the 21 category small so it is easy to find relevant and active information. While the 29 category is more so for archival purposes.

Thank you very much.

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I have organized the WoW files and I got to 9 ID’s. So yes, a category indeed.

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Nice work! :handshake:t3: