Struggling with Category Overlap in My Johnny.Decimal System—Advice?

J.D Concepts
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Hey everyone,

I have been using Johnny.Decimal for a while now.., but I keep running into an issue with category overlap. Sometimes, a piece of information seems like it could fit into two different buckets and I am not sure where to put it. For example.., I have a “Work Projects” category and a “Personal Development” category, and some research I do could apply to both.

How do you handle cases like this: ?? Do you just pick the most relevant category, or do you create some kind of cross-referencing system: ?? I want to keep things clean without overcomplicating my setup. I have also gone through this thread https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/creating-areas-categories-and-things-is-hard-aws-course but still looking for some more tips and advice.

Would love to hear how others approach this !!

Thanks.

With Regards,
Derek Theler

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Hi Derek,
As always: it depends :slight_smile:

Are we talking files? Notes? other stuff?
Few thing:

  • I would save this first where I first discovered it. So something I did for work, but also use personal, would be in work I think.
  • You could also, just like de JD life admin system, say: Always in the first you find. So something gits in 11.30 and 17.43 (examples), it goes in 11.30 cause it’s the earliest number.
  • If we are talking notes, you could crosslink in most programs yes. I use that myself in Obsidian.

Other than that. I am really curious to your specific case where personal developement and work projects overlap.

PS. This answer also depends on if these are two systems or two areas/categories in the same system. Lemme know!

~FJ

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