The secret level?

10-19 Concepts 13 Multiple projects
1

I was reading a little about Johnny Decimal this weekend. I get the impression that there’s a level of folder structure that’s not talked about, which is the project level. That level is above the top level of Johnny Decimal.

Let’s say you work on the production staff of an episodic TV series like The Simpsons. Each episode has a number of required steps and reference assets. Those steps and types of assets are the same from one episode to the next. Each episode gets its own folder, and within that folder you organize all the steps and reference assets for each episode using the Johnny Decimal method.

But you can’t really organize the episodes themselves using Johnny Decimal because it doesn’t make sense and because they have been 734 episodes of The Simpsons. And that’s more than 10.

Am I missing something here?

2

This is a pattern within 13 Multiple projects :link: that I haven’t documented yet. It’s one of the reasons the site got a re-write: I just haven’t got round to it.

(In 2020 when I wrote the site that just got replaced I didn’t really plan for it to be updated, so ironically enough there wasn’t really a structure to allow me to add significant new content.)

You’ve identified the ‘creative agency’ pattern. They have loads of clients and each client has loads of jobs.

My partner has worked in this world and apparently each job has an agency-specific ‘job code’. I think in this case my advice would be to use that ‘job code’ as your first-level organising folder, i.e. replace my letter-number-number project code with a code that already exists and is well understood at your company.

And then under there is your JD structure. In the case of The Simpsons, I’d expect each of those structures to be essentially identical, with different assets at the leaf nodes.

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3

In the “letter-number-number project code” system, the letter is a top level, above the area and category, giving us a three-level hierarchy instead of two?

BTW, I’m a freelance journalist and content marketer. So essentially a one-person agency. I chose the Simpsons example because I thought it would be more understandable and enjoyable for most people, but the organizational situation is similar to my own… I have articles, blog posts, and white papers instead of episodes.

4

It gets you an extra level, yes. So rather than one single system that looks like:

00.00
// all the numbers
99.99

You end up with any number of systems – projects – each of which has its own identifier:

A01      << project 'A01'
  00.00
  // all the numbers
  99.99

// all the projects from A01 - Z98

Z99      << project 'Z99'
  00.00
  // all the numbers
  99.99

In reality I put the name of the project after the identifier, so for example the JD website is:

D01 Johnny.Decimal website
  00-09 Site administration
     01 About
        01.01 Colophon
        01.02 Licence
        // and so on
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5

Hi @johnnydecimal,

To better understand what logic you’ve applied to have a consistent naming of your system in your Jdex:
Ex: D85.23.14 Why have you chosen D85 to name your Johnny.Decimal system?
Ex: P76. 15.22 Why have you chosen P76 to name your Johnny’s personal system?

Is everything in between D85 and P76 used by any projects ?

I’m looking for naming consistently my two first systems that I have just created with the JD method :slight_smile:
What would your recommandations be ?
Thnks :slight_smile:

6

I only have 3 active projects.

  • P76 Johnny’s personal system.

    • I use the life admin system here.
    • P = personal
    • 76 = year I was born.

  • D01 johnnydecimal.com

    • So the numbers you see on the main website are tracked here.
    • D = Decimal.
    • 01 = because when I named it I hadn’t realised that it’s okay to start at a random number. It makes things more memorable.

  • D85 Johnny.Decimal the business

    • D = Decimal.
    • 85 = looks a bit like the letters BS if you squint, and this is the business system. :smiley:

And soon, when we’ve finished the small business system, I’ll migrate D85 to it and it’ll become D58. Which conveniently looks like SB = small business! :sunglasses:

Main recommendation: be inventive here. Don’t just use A01.

7

Many thanks :pray:, everything lights up.
Your clarifies guide my creativity to be logical for the future me :star_struck:.

When you’ll migrate D85 into D58, I guess you won’t rename manually each SYS.AC.ID. What’s your trick ? ( yeah, I am such a beginner with snippets actions in computing :see_no_evil:)

8

We don’t have that many files, and I want to use it as an opportunity to become more familiar with the new system. So I’ll just do it by hand.

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9

Ok, so no trick :magic_wand:but indeed it’ s ok by hand :slight_smile:
Thank you :slight_smile: