I recently “discovered” Johnny Decimal, purchased the handbook and the Life Admin system, and I’ve been working away for the last several weeks on developing my index. I’ve benefited greatly from reading some of the conversations on this forum, particularly people’s thought process in relating their other knowledge management systems with their JD systems. I thought I would share my use case and my own thinking through this process, in case it helps anyone else. I’m also interested in any feedback on my thought process and the direction I’m taking this in.
First, some background. Over the last year, I’ve been building various systems in Obsidian (GTD, journaling, a zettelkasten, my personal recipe book, etc.) to become more organized and support a visioning process for an upcoming career transition. I’ve been working in a “real-time” job for the last ten years and I love it for the work-life balance, but as I get older the shift work is becoming more difficult. I’ll be eligible to take early retirement in a couple of years, which I plan to do, and I am trying to figure out what comes next. I will still need/want to work, but I’ll be able to afford to take on something that pays less while (hopefully) is more fulfilling. My assignment is to figure out what that is.
A year ago, I was in a place of complete disarray, with haphazard to-do lists everywhere, and stacks of paper in my spare bedroom that hadn’t been filed for years. I would put off doing things because I was anxious about whether I could find what I needed to do them. I kept a list of books I’d read but found I often couldn’t remember what they were about after just a few years. I used to keep notes in Evernote, but the free version had become so throttled I just stopped taking them. With all this chaos, I just didn’t have the mental space for the creative thinking needed to reimagine my career. I also dreaded the possibility of going back to a regular, Monday-to-Friday job where I’d need to organize project work, because my memories of doing that kind of work earlier in my career (and which my current job freed me of) were of that same drowning chaos and anxiety.
Then I found Obsidian and it has been wonderful. I’ve got my to-do list under control with a nifty GTD system I built, and I’ve started taking much more meaningful notes than ever. It’s a joy to work in, and I love that it’s completely private with all my notes hosted on my own devices (I find this freeing; I don’t edit myself the way I would if I thought my notes could be read by others). But my files are still a mess (I still have piles everywhere) and it has still felt like there was a missing organizational piece, even within Obsidian.
I think Johnny Decimal is that piece. I love that it can marry my physical and digital files with my note-taking system, not to mention that I now have a way to systematically organize all my other haphazard systems (my bookmarks in Raindrop, my passwords, etc.). The “a-ha” moment for me was realizing that this can be much bigger than just organizing the existing files on my laptop and in my filing cabinet. The universe of things I could be taking notes on is much bigger. This can become a personal directory to my whole life. How satisfying!
Here is the scope statement for my JD system:
" What is in scope:
- All things related to the day-to-day administration of my personal life (including documents, finances, family, pets, home, cars, etc.)
- My interests and hobbies
- My knowledge base (can include career-related knowledge but out of general interest, not directly related to my job)
- My health and fitness
- My visioning work related to my upcoming career transition decisions
- In the future, whatever substantial activities fill my time once I leave my current job. This could be running a business or organization, or diving deeply into something that interests me. It could also involve building a home somewhere. I want to leave space in my system for large projects that are meaningful to me.
What is out of scope:
- My current job. This system isn’t meant to organize my work. I am fortunate in that my current job is “real time” and doesn’t require much in the way of organization.
- My zettelkasten. While my zettelkasten will sit within an ID in the system, and there may be links to IDs from individual ZK notes where relevant, I won’t try to categorize the notes within it (defeats the purpose of the zettelkasten).
- My GTD system. Again, this will be linked to from the JD system but I won’t try to impose a JD system on it. Where a GTD project results in something worth documenting or filing, the GTD project page could become a record in the JD system.
- My recipe book. Similarly, it will be an item in the JD system but I won’t try to categorize my recipes using a JD system.
- Media files. Music, ebooks, photographs, mp3 files, etc. will be catalogued and stored outside the JD system. (Notes, discussion and lists related to these things are in scope for the JD system)."
To develop my index I used the Life Admin pack as a starting point (which I found very useful!) and refined it to suit my needs. I renamed some things, moved a few things around, removed some IDs that weren’t relevant to me, and fleshed out others to reflect their importance to me.
Most notably, I moved all the health related stuff from the 11’s to a new 16 category (see below), I moved hobbies and interests down to the 15’s and renamed that category “Travel, entertainment, hobbies & interests” since I felt those all went together with stuff I do in my spare time, and I created a space within the 11’s for my various organizational tools:
- 11.30 ■ Organizing & making sense of my life
- 11.31 Goals, values & reflections
- 11.32 Getting things done (link to my GTD system)
- 11.33 Someday-maybe
- 11.34 My zettelkasten (link to my zettelkasten)
- 11.35 Productivity & PKM resources (articles, etc., on these topics)
I have some fairly complex health issues and I need to invest a lot of time in fitness training to manage them. My initial impulse was to make “Health & Fitness” it’s own area, separate from Life Admin. But the more I stared at it and thought about the scope of the items in the Life Admin system, it just didn’t feel like these things were really broad enough to fill an area by themselves. I decided instead to make them into categories 16 and 17 in Life Admin. Here is what that looks like:
-
16 My physical & mental health
- 16.00 ■ System management
- 16.10 ■ My health conditions (research on specific conditions)
- 16.11 Minor or well-managed conditions
- 16.12 Bertolotti’s syndrome
- 16.13 Osteoarthritis
- 16.14 Psoriasis/PsA
- 16.15 Periodontitis
- 16.16 Shift work sleep disorder
- 16.17 Menopause
- 16.20 ■ Health insurance
- 16.21 Policies (docs, coverages, health spending acct, etc.)
- 16.22 Claims
- 16.23 Out of pocket expenses
- 16.30 ■ Medical care
- 16.31 Health records & registrations (doctor’s letters, lab/hospital website logins, etc.)
- 16.32 Vaccinations
- 16.33 Practitioners (organized by doctor: contact info, notes from appointments)
- 16.34 Test results
- 16.35 Prescriptions & supplements
- 16.36 Treatments & surgeries
- 16.40 ■ Eyes, ears & teeth
- 16.50 ■ Supplemental & alternative care
- 16.51 Physiotherapy
- 16.52 Naturopathy
- 16.53 Massage therapy
- 16.54 Osteopathy
- 16.55 Nutrition, sleep, & other wellbeing
- 16.60 ■ My mental health
-
17 Fitness & training
- 17.00 ■ System management
- 17.10 ■ My fitness journey
- 17.11 Workout plans & goals
- 17.12 Fitness tracker
- 17.13 Workout records
- 17.14 Personal trainers
- 17.20 ■ Fitness resources
- 17.21 Home gym equipment
- 17.22 Strength training
- 17.23 Calisthenics
- 17.24 Conditioning
- 17.25 Pilates
Since my job is not in scope, and everything else fit under Life Admin, I ended up with a JD system with just one area. It’s got a lot of stuff in it but there’s still room to grow within Life Admin, both in terms of categories and IDs.
I’ll admit that at first I struggled with the idea of having just one area. Why bother having a system with space for 10 areas and then just using one of them? Did I really not have anything meaty enough in my life to fill another area? But when I think about it in the context of where I am right now, it makes sense to me. All the unused areas are a blank slate full of future potential. My challenge is to find the things that will fill them.
I’m sharing this in case this is helpful to others, and also seeking insights and suggestions. Note that in the original version of this post I shared my whole structure but then thought better of it as it revealed a lot about the Life Admin system, which is proprietary. But I’m happy to answer any questions about specific changes I made and, and also very grateful for any constructive feedback.
