Product launch: The Johnny.Decimal Workbook [D41.00.00]

10-19 Concepts 14 Build your system
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Essentially a copy of the email I sent, so forgive the duplicate if you’re on the email list.

Hey there, Decimals. I wrote a new thing! This is the first result of me quitting my job, and I’m really proud of it. Team Decimal (Lucy and I) have spent hundreds of hours on it over the last couple of weeks.

It’s the Johnny.Decimal Workbook: ‘a guide to setting up a single-project system and working the Decimal way.’

In this step-by-step workbook, I’ll take you through the entire process of how I set up my Johnny.Decimal project systems.

This guidance has been distilled from more than a decade’s experience using Johnny.Decimal in different corporate settings.

By the end of this comprehensive guide you will have built your very own system.

It’s as close to being inside my brain as you can get.

There’s more information on the site. I hope you like it.

Side-note for the forum. :crazy_face: Aagrrghghhhhh what a crazy couple of weeks. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I thought, hey, we’re going on holiday soon, I should try to get something done. And so we started this project.

It’s been non-stop since then, and yesterday’s final sprint until we made it live was crazy. But we made it! And I really am very proud of it, as is Lucy who did all of the design, layout, and copy editing.

Now we have Lucy’s sister coming to house- and chicken-sit while we’re away so we’re giving everything a good spring clean before we leave. One more day of chores (fortunately I enjoy cleaning) before I can really relax.

I am looking forward to hitting the ground in Singapore on Friday and having that first beer. :beers:

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Congrats, and an epic effort given how quickly you got the final product together. (Yeah, I know the first 10 years of thinking required to write this wasn’t fast, but you know what I mean!)

I read it right through and I loved it. I can’t wait for the updates as they come through as well. In fact it’s a very clever way of launching with a minimum viable product which updates as you work on it, rather than waiting until it’s all ready to go.

Well done.

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I read it in full! I am already working on my personal setup for my home files.
I have tried a lot of different methods in the past, but like JD.

Will post my structure ones it is finished.

(btw. I’m using Miro for the first time to design this structure. The bulk post-it feature is really nice.)

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Interesting, that’s the online whiteboard thing yeah? Tell us more, if it’s good enough to recommend I can integrate it in to the next version of the guide.

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I have never used it before yesterday, so I cannot give you all the details :joy:
I found it searching for a free tool to do post-its and mindmaps.
There apparently is a free version of Miro which allows 3 boards.

When you click on post-its, you can add them in bulk. You just type and press Enter, when you are done you press Ctrl + Enter and it adds a lot of post-its to the board (see picture).

J.D. System Design in Miro
J.D. System Design in Miro1497×667 76.6 KB

This is my scope and some other notes I want to remember.
I cleared the text, but this is what my brainstorm looks like right now.

Next step will be dragging them around and thinking of categories. I am using it for all my personal files (see scope), but Miro is meant for collaborating. So it could be good if you want to think of a project structure with your team.

I will be posting my structure and thought process when I am done :smile:

(I could only add one media as new user)

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Neat – thanks for making this! I’ve now purchased my copy.

Is it possible to get an ebook version?

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well then - this is my new go-to link when file organization comes up - I’ll just share the link to your workbook. Done.

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Bought my copy. Definitely worth the money.
Thank you Johnny for producing this!

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I’ve bought my copy too!

I few weeks too late though! I was sick in bed about two weeks ago, though not too sick to play on the laptop, and organised my entire work folder system over about two days or so. So when I started reading the workbook that specifically said to not do it that way, I was like ‘oops’. But I think it’s all fine. I’ve given it all a skim, I’ll do a more thorough reading, and see if I need to change things. But just a quick note to say thanks and good luck!

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Quick favour if you’ve been kind enough to buy the Workbook: would you be kind enough to review the Workbook?

It’s just a star-click, no words required.

  1. Find your purchase email, subject ‘You got The Johnny.Decimal Workbook [D41.00.00]!’
  2. Click the ‘View content’ button.
  3. Click the fifth star. :wink:

Thanks heaps.

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I’ve been pushing this system hard at work since I discovered it. I’ve even used it in emails and share storage locations, etc… and passed the website on when initiating projects that leverage it. I just stopped by to say, that I think even though this workbook has a financial burden, it’s value (even though I haven’t bought it), makes it far easier in my opinion for you to get Enterprise level buy-in to this type of organization in document management, etc. I’m going to revisit it with some colleagues as we are literally going through a migration from disparate systems to Teams / Sharepoint and honestly it drives me crazy that there is literally no structure whatsoever being followed in shared storage locations. No one ever knows where anything is, search function is our only savior. Also, the Airtable is a nice touch. As we are licensed for it as well, so to me it makes a lot of sense for folks to get on board.

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Getting stuff organised ‘at work’ is the holy grail, so please let me know how your efforts go.

…really interesting. Something for me to think about this year.

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I did something similar, I sent out the web link and a PDF of the web pages to everyone on my peer team. I used the occasion of an M365 migration to encourage others to get their filing systems in order. Here’s hoping this generated some interest and perhaps sales! :money_mouth_face:

1 Like