I’m revisiting my JD system. I “half-assed” it last year, starting one way, pivoting in another direction, and am finally committed to finished the configuration to make it work.
I had started with SBS then LAS - partially on both - just adopting the categories and IDs that existed there so it became a filing exercise for my file system to semi clean it up. What I never did was go back to create the JDex and have a proper index. I didn’t get into having any workflow so most things that came up after I started simply got moved to an Inbox vs. get the next ID, create the ID, file the thing etc.
Now that I’m back at it, I have some questions about the index itself in the context of using Obsidian to house the index. I think this time I want to figure out the index and process first THEN finalize the structure so I can get the right properties on the IDs as I built it out.
Q1 - what properties do you set on your IDs?
Initially I was thinking of having Area, Category, ID but that all seems redundant if my naming convention is solid, I could get that from a parent folder in the path or the numbering. I am planning on having Related, Location, Keywords as properties on the notes as well for synonyms, search etc. What do you see as “mandatory” meta data for various purposes or linking?
Q2 - do you use Folder Notes and what properties do you set on those?
My thinking here is if I use them, they are by definition typically at a category or area level so they may have fewer properties? Are folder notes useful for anything in your workflow or documentation?
Q3 - what is your workflow when you need a new ID?
Do you use bases or dataflow to help identify the highest existing ID in a given area-category? I’m thinking the process is basically “figure out what ID to use” > “create the ID note” > “add the ID to the JDex if not automatically picking it up via query” > go do the thing you were going to do from there (create folder in filesystem or name the file you are filing or whatever). It just feels slightly cumbersome, but I am likely overthinking this as usual!
None, as in Obisidian’s YAML properties. I don’t use Bases and prefer simple indented bullet lists for my ‘properties’, as shown below. I do have a standard list that I use – and I’m working on a documented standard for Johnny.Decimal – but it’s small.
Related:
A wiki-link to another entry.
Data:
If I have notable data elsewhere, e.g. a file I don’t want to forget about, I’ll note it here.
Keywords:
If I want to help future-me search for this thing.
I just scanned my list of ~30 recently edited notes and, yep, that’s it. I don’t set area and category because that information is already encoded in the name of the note and, like I said, I’m not querying mine programmatically.
Q2: Folder Notes
When required, yes. Exclusively for extend-the-end notes. For example, Small Business has 14.32 External services (as in software). I have a ton of those, each with its own entry e.g. 14.32+ Discourse for this forum.
So 14.32 External services has been turned into a Folder Note, and these entries are contained within. But it has no additional properties.
Q3: new ID workflow
I do it the old-skool way! I just look down the list of IDs, see the next free one, and create a note by hand. Always manually, JDex-first.
It makes the folder a note, meaning it acts as both a folder but also is a note that you can add content to. It alters the default behaviour of a folder in the sense that clicking on the folder doesn’t expand/contract the folder, it shows the note because now it’s both, so you need to click the arrow beside the folder to expand/contract it. (Minor nuance I found frustrating but I get why it does that). I have decided against using this plug-in - will post separately about that when I’m done organizing because I still have it in places and can’t remove it yet.
But, in the context of JD, it’s common (I think) to use this for creating a folder for IDs that may have more than one note related to it to store them in a folder iwth the same ID as a note.
So your ID might be 14.32 like Johnny’s example above, and that could be a folder “with a folder note” so that the folder itself is a note in Obsidian and all the related notes are underneath it.
I would say if it is working for you then it’s not the wrong way.
I’m in the early stages of getting mine organized, I had started doing the JD system last year in terms of organizing files, but never built the index to finish it and tie it together. Now I’m coming back to finally figuring out how to build and use the index. I will post what I’ve got in a separate post shortly to share how I ended up.
This post was trying to see what others do with properties but I think I’ve settled on some things. I’ll share more in a new post sometime later today.
When I don’t use Folder notes, Obsidian sorts my stuff in a funny way in the left pane: All the folders come first, all the notes after.
I guess that makes sense for many use cases, but for accessing my Johnny.Decimal-systems, I’d prefer it if Obsidian sorted strictly by name.
I didn’t find that setting though, therefore I create a folder note to each entry. This way, they are all folders and get sorted equally.
That drove me nuts too, but I “solved” it for myself a different way. I am embracing the lawlessness (LOL) of not having subfolders upon subfolders in most places so there are not many places where I have a mix of things in folders and notes in the same folder. That alleviated the need for me to use Folder Notes.
90% of my notes are all in one folder called “notes (other)” - wihtout any subfolders at all, but every note is tagged with properties for AC ID and related notes so I try not to look in that folder but use search and linkages to find what I need and it’s working well so far.
I guess I wasn’t courageous enough to trust the process. The fear that I might have forgotten to classify a note and will never find it again is strong in me. Because that’s what happened when I used PARA before — despite Tiago promising it wouldn’t. Maybe I didn’t use PARA correctly and that caused me to lose stuff, but either way I lost stuff. Stuff that resurfaced once I had started to switch to JD.
And maybe it’s just personal preference, but as a Librarian, I love it when things are at a specific place and not in a huge container.
…of course now you have that annoying file in your left pane so then I use File Hider to do just that. No doubt soon enough I’ll need another plugin to override some behaviour of File Hider.
No doubt soon enough I’ll need another plugin to override some behaviour of File Hider.