RFC: The Standard Zeros v2.0

J.D Concepts 11 Core concepts
1

Acknowledging prior work, which you should read if this is a topic of interest:

Overview

  1. The standard zeros are a bit confusing, and
  2. inconsistent, and
  3. they take up more room than they should/could.

This is especially the case at 00-09 System management.

I seek to re-standardise the zeros and request feedback.[1] I need to lock this in by July 13th.

Design goals (in this order)

  1. Simplicity.
  2. Consistency.
  3. Free up some room.

v2.0

There will be one set of standard zeros that are dropped in to every location. They always look like this.

AC.00 Index
AC.01 Inbox
AC.02 Task & project management
AC.03 Templates
AC.04 [free]
AC.05 [free]
AC.06 [free]
AC.07 [free]
AC.08 Someday
AC.09 Archive

System-level

Starting at the top, the system management area shrinks. Let’s say we’re in the Small Business System.

00-09 System management
   00 System management
      00.00 Index for Small Business System
      00.01 Inbox for Small Business System
      00.02 Task & project management for Small Business System
      00.03 Templates for Small Business System
      …
      00.08 Someday for Small Business System
      00.09 Archive for Small Business System

On the format

It’s always the same.

AC.0D [Zero label] for [location description][2]

Crucially, the zero label comes first. This ensures that it remains visible when, say, your file system truncates the name of a folder; they truncate from the end. You already know where you are, so that context is less important.

User-available ranges

  • IDs 00.04-00.07 are reserved for future standard zeros.

  • IDs 00.10-00.99 are free for use.

  • Categories 01-09 are free for use.

Duplication of name at 00-09 and 00

Suggestions welcome for a new name for either the area or category. But I’m okay with them being the same.

Area-level

Let’s jump to the 20s.

20-29 Products, suppliers, equipment, processes, & inventory
   20 Area management
      20.00 Index for area 20-29
      20.01 Inbox for area 20-29
      20.02 Task & project management for area 20-29
      20.03 Templates for area 20-29
      …
      20.08 Someday for area 20-29
      20.09 Archive for area 20-29

On the format

The most important thing is that the user understands where they are, and to what these IDs relate. So we’re explicit:

AC.0D [Zero label] for area A0-A9

That’s not a placeholder. We just write area 20-29.

This is how they come ‘out of the box’. If you prefer, you may replace the name of the area with its full name:

AC.0D [Zero label] for products, suppliers, equipment, processes, & inventory

…or, more realistically in this case…

AC.0D [Zero label] for products etc.

User-available ranges

  • IDs A0.04-A0.07 are reserved for future standard zeros.

  • IDs A0.10-A0.99 are free for use.

Category-level

The pattern repeats.

20-29 Products, suppliers, equipment, processes, & inventory
   21 Products & services
      21.00 Index for category 21
      21.01 Inbox for category 21
      21.02 Task & project management for category 21
      21.03 Templates for category 21
      …
      21.08 Someday for category 21
      21.09 Archive for category 21

User-available ranges

  • IDs AC.04-AC.07 are reserved for future standard zeros.

    • If you need your own zero here, allocate one at the category level.

  • IDs AC.10-AC.99 are free for use; these are ‘normal’ Johnny.Decimal IDs.

That’s it :upside_down_face:

Much, much simpler. Consistent across the board. And loads of room to do your own thing if you need it.

Addressing previous issues

On @interrato’s proposal to move category-level zeros up to 00-09

An interesting idea, but not implemented here because it’s not as simple, and requires more clicks to get you from ‘here’ to ‘the system management for here’.

I like that the system-management stuff is always adjacent to the thing being managed. This was prioritised over making more IDs available for use.

‘Inbox’ vs. ‘Work in progress’

There was prior discussion/it was a previous standard zero re: work in progress. Then we realised that it’s the same as ‘inbox’: it’s just some in-progress unfiled stuff.

If it’s not in-progress, it belongs at .08 or .09. Or if it hasn’t even started, it’s probably just a task at .02.

And if you really really want a separate WIP folder, now there’s room for you to create your own.

  1. Hence RFC. :nerd_face: ↩︎

  2. In the first version I had - instead of the word for . It just feels natural to space-dash-space it. But ‘for’ is just more descriptive. It’s this for that. ↩︎

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3

I like it. It’s simpler. Nice to move everything to the ID level.

How much do you use category vs area level 0’s? I don’t use much of either (yet), while my feeling says most things can go in the more general one. But maybe, especially for templates, it’s useful to have a more specific one.

4

Not much day-to-day. Our biggest use-case so far has been the category-level inbox, which is a really great way to start organising your existing mess. Lucy used those heavily when she built her system.

I mean honestly I don’t use many of them day-to-day. I just like having them there.

5

If in actual usage the category-level gets the most use, than it wouldn’t make sense to drop those in favour of the area-level ones only – as I had been thinking might be feasible. And dropping the area-level doesn’t make sense, because then if you ever need it, you have a problem. I.e. you could get away with just the area-level, but not the other way round, but as you say the category level is what you’ll usually use.
thanks.

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6

I like the idea. I still need the “masters” standard zero. We are about to tidy up a big chunk of our sharepoint nightmare at work, using the JD framework, and we need a masters standard zero for editable instructions and guidelines which will then be published outside the standard zeros at “public” IDs.

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7

I also like the approach. My remarks:

.08

I’ve removed the “.08 Someday” from all places except the one where I store random notes and ideas for sorting / processing. But even there it is not used that much. Maybe it is easier to simply erase things that are not startable within an realistic “operative range” e.g. one year or so. Good ideas will always come back and things that cannot be worked on within a year will usually never start. So this just clutters stuff up.
In my workflow I project “things to do” onto the next 12 months and try to put them into a month where I want to start them. Seperately I keep a “global todo” which I clean in regular intervals and move things either into a timeslot (month) or erase them from the list. If an idea that I never started comes back often, I tend to start it “right now” :slight_smile:

.02

Usually I keep ops manuals and other stuff under “.02” but I think that this might be just a specialised case of “task & project management” so I’m already getting used to that. :wink:

8

Exactly. They’re just a structured form of a to-do.

1 Like
9

Completely agree with all of these points. I eliminated the ‘Work in progress’ zero from my own system from the start as I never understood how it differed from my inbox! And overtime I have also standardized my own zeros in exactly this way. To me, the main advantages of a JD system are its ability to collect information across multiple locations (file folders, notes, email, shared drives owned by others, etc.) and support my aging memory!

The standard zero pattern ##.0# is easy to remember across the system (00.0#), areas (#0.0#) and Categories (##.0#).

In case it’s helpful to have more detail, I use .07 for Someday (because…alliteration), .02 for templates (same) and .03 for ‘Rooted Productivity’ which I borrowed/adapted from Cal Newport (so much for alliteration but three rhymes with Productivity and the abbreviated “RP” ) --it’s basically task and project management plus stuff like user manuals and tools unique to that system, area or category. I also use .08 for “Administrivia” which are mind-numbing, routine tasks for work (like time entries or approvals). But these are personal tweaks that might not have the same usefulness for everyone.

I also think JD has an implicit additional use case for 0s as IDs that serve as Headings: ##.#0

These are found in the Life Admin System. I don’t always use headers but I do always skip the ‘tens’ (##.#0) when creating IDs for two reasons

  1. it’s easier for me to just remember that if there’s a 0 anywhere in the full AC.ID it has a specific, structural/patterned role in my system.
  2. It means if I’m creating a new thing that feels like it’s really a mini grouping that needs a header I can always bump down to the next ‘10.’ That does reduce the total number of IDs by 9 more (plus the 10 standard zeros), which means I only have 81 IDs/category. I worried a little about this at first, but I’m not bumping against that limit. If I do I’ll just extend the end…

Anyway, the main idea of a consistent pattern for the standard zeros is definitely something I would endorse as an improvement on the system for anyone, and I am interested to hear whether other folks share my intuitions about keeping all zeros purely structural.

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10

That is an excellent point. And as the one that ends in zero I see them as functionally equivalent to .00 Index. Headings are an index of what they contain. So much so that the SBS (and soon to be LAS) website lists them like this:

z-CleanShot 2025-07-06 08-31-19@2x
z-CleanShot 2025-07-06 08-31-19@2x1866×1228 178 KB

11

He he. I learned a new word today.

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12

I was tuning up my system today (I am transitioning roles within the same institution) and had to remind myself that in JD the most recent/specific stuff sorts to the bottom (highest numbered ID). This is backwards from the way a lot of people/systems seem to sort digital files – the default seems to be to sort by date, with most recent at the top. By contrast, JD encourages us to file at the lowest level possible (see the nifty flow chart at the bottom of 12.03 the standard zeros. I under appreciated that at the start and created a 90 area for archives. This is redundant once you have standard zero .09 for the whole system as well as every area and category. I appreciate that now even though it still seems a little counter-intuitive (my instinct is to expect archives at the bottom of a list). But what’s nice about it is if I go back into unstructured archives, I find myself sorting stuff into more specific locations down the list.

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