Trying a simpler version for many small projects

I tried to set up Johnny Decimal a few times in the last several years, but never took the proper time while setting up, so it didn’t stick. This time I’m going slow, starting with my work set up.

I also have a little pile of topics I want to bring to the forum and hear what other people think, so here’s the first one!

In my job, I work many small projects that are individually simple and all for the same employer. It’s slightly too complicated for AC.ID and slightly too simple for PRO.AC.ID. I definitely have more than 10 projects, but within each project I don’t need 2 levels of organization.

Therefore, I think I’m going to go with something along the lines of PRC.ID

A little something like this (every project I work has a cool name):

010 - 019 ARROW
  010 Programmatics
    010.00 Program info (charge number type data)
    010.01 Org Chart
    010.02 Weekly Status Meetings
    ... etc
  011 Concept Design
    011.01 Doodad
    011.02 Knickknack
    011.03 Trinket
    ... etc
  012 Detailed Design
  013 Revisions
  014 Misc Tasks
    014.01 Calculate surface areas for Frank
020 - 029 ARCHER
030 - 039 PANDA
040-049 EMERALD

I would try to keep the categories consistent across projects, so I would know 021.04 is a concept design for Archer and 043.58 is a revision for Emerald, etc.

I’m thinking “keep it as simple as possible, but no simpler”.
What does everyone think of trying something like this?

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I never fail to be amazed at the number of variations on the system that people come up with. :slight_smile: I’ll gather them all up and document them on the site one day.

This looks fine to me! Be interesting to hear from someone else who’s used a JD variant for a while, how’s it going for you?

I would love to see all the various flavors of Johnny Decimal! You’ve created a great set of core concepts and it’s interesting to see how people remix them.

It’s going really well. I had trouble figuring out how to categorize everything until I realized how much I can let go of, especially on my personal system. Once I realized that it became really easy to fit into just a couple of areas.

My biggest challenge is the index in my professional system. My employer has very strict rules about software is allowed, so I keep waffling between OneNote and Notepad++. I’d love to have something that has nesting tags like you demo with Bear on the site, but that’s unlikely to happen.

100% feel your pain here. The corporate note-taking situation is grim.

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