# Using Johnny.Decimal with more than 100 files per category

**URL:** <https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441>\
**Category:** Concepts\
**Created:** [April 23, 2022, 9:12pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441 "2022-04-23T21:12:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Craftidore](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/45deac/32.png) [@Craftidore](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/Craftidore)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2022, 9:12pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441/1 "2022-04-23T21:12:26Z")

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I’m wanting to set up Johnny.Decimal for future school notes as well as for stuff like worldbuilding. Unfortunately, I can’t always predict whether something needs to be a category or a bucket, and usually by the time I know that a certain subject requires far more than a single category’s space (i.e. the files in the category are getting close to/above 100), it’s too late to change the category.

The current solution is to change the files in the category from `JD.ID Filename` to `JD.YYMMDD Filename` schema, but this is

1. Ugly
2. A bit of a time commitment

How have you handled similar situations?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2022, 7:20am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441/2 "2022-04-25T07:20:16Z")

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In this scenario, which is hopefully _fairly_ unusual, I think just going past `.99` up to `.100` and onwards is okay.

The only thing this breaks is the neatness of the numbers: two, decimal, two. But when you think about it semantically, logically, nothing has actually changed. Really my limit of 99 on IDs is kinda arbitrary. It’s borne of neatness.

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**Author:** ![BobWalsh](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/bobwalsh/32/189_2.png) [@BobWalsh](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/BobWalsh)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441/3 "2022-04-26T18:41:23Z")

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I think the JD system is powerfully elegant: the problem is applying it to our digital, multi-platform world. I routinely store stuff in evernote, apple notes, todoist, etc.

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**Author:** ![jdnumbers](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@jdnumbers](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/jdnumbers)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 8:52pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441/4 "2022-04-28T20:52:52Z")

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I just had this happen to me. I kept going past 100. However, that messed up the folder structure, because the .100 file came after .10, and not after .99. I had to renumber my folders to say, 52.0001 - 52.0099 and then did 52.0100. I’ve dealt with 100 situations here but I can honestly deal in the next year with 1000 actions that will need a folder number, so I just went ahead and put the 3 0s. I’ll give you that it’s not pretty, but it is what it is….and helps me keep a chronological order.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Craftidore](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/45deac/32.png) [@Craftidore](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/Craftidore)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/using-johnny-decimal-with-more-than-100-files-per-category/441/5 "2022-04-29T15:10:11Z")

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Something that just occurred to me is that I could start using letters. Not really changing it to hexadecimal, but letting the tens column be a letter will keep the sort order in my file explorer while keeping the two-digit system _and_ not having to reformat all my prior notes.

```auto
- 10 Some Bucket
    - 11 Some Category
        - 11.01 - 11.99
        - 11.a0 - 11.a9
        - 11.b0 - 11.b9
        - 11.c0 - 11.z9

```

Of course, I’ll have to do a massive rewrite to my Obsidian Templater scripts because `int.toString()` won’t get me so close to what I want, but I think that’s worth it.