I’ve spent a few months reorganizing my files using the Johnny Decimal system, which I’ve come to admire. I started down the path using Obsidian for my Johnny Decimal index. But I’ve just decided to consolidate into DevonThink, which I am also using as a general purpose repository for emails to be saved, writing, etc. I think by doing this I can withdraw from using Obsidian. Some of the issues/concerns/factors:
handling of images and attachments is much smoother in DT
I have grown to like replicants when one file needs to be in two places at once (consider a piece of email I want to save that might fit into two Johnny Decimal ID’s (implemented as groups in DT)).
while I like Markdown as a writing tool, some circumstances are just less suitable for this, and DT is obviously better. For real quick note taking I may use either Apple Notes or Drafts. I suspect this will be my main input on my phone or iPad, though I do have DTTG
web clipping is better in DT
less friction to move files around
I can live without the pretty graphs, and have not made a lot of use of linking, though now that I’ve decided to re-consolidate to DT, may dip more of my foot into that water.
Finally, I really like the collaborative nature of this forum, and the clear helpfulness of the Devonians.
Welcome back
Not a Johnny Decimal fan; what do you like about it?
I use tags for organization
For example; With a receipt record, I assign tag Type-Receipt
and add tags for Budget-Category and Vendor
If the receipt is for a project, I add tag Project: aaaaaa
How would you handle this in Johnny Decimal? Replicants?
So tags can be complementary - your use of tags seems to focus on the type of item (receipt, budget, etc.). I am still folder (in the OS) and group (in DT) focused and want to keep stuff from one activity together. I know there are some who have implemented Johnny Decimal in tags rather than folders.
To me the biggest benefits of Johnny Decimal are:
fight against folder proliferation at the top level
can use the same classification scheme for electronic (in multiple venues) and hard copy categorization — which is a key benefit of an index (aka card catalog)
And I would also add that the process of moving to a Johnny Decimal system caused me to do a lot of cleanup, and consolidation of related material that was in disparate places.
I tried Johnny Decimal but found I could never remember the numbers and continually having to look them up defeated the object for me. I then tried a hybrid which used two letters (which were easier to remember) like FI for finance. But even this got too cumbersome as I found having files with lots of letters and/or numbers at the front bugged me visually (my problem).
Similar to @DTLow I found I preferred a file name that quickly tells me what a file is about. Tags and groups make it obvious what type of file it is, its status, and what project or area it belongs to. I think enjoying Johnny Decimal depends on how your mind works and it didn’t suit mine (even though it is a fine idea). In the end, organisation systems are personal (and usually constantly evolving!).
DT is a good place for a JD system as it is so flexible and is easy to alter or automate with all its scripting capabilities.
I use a modified Johnny Decimal system, in which the numbers are not there for me to memorize … they’re simply a way of keeping folders and sub-folders in the order I want them to stay in. I have similarly numbered systems in Notes and Reminders, and it’s a thing of beauty.
The process of setting this up made me really think clearly about where things should go, and now when I have a new item to file, I know it can go only in one possible place. And when I’m looking for something specific, I know exactly how to drill down to find it in the one possible place it can be.
Before this, I found any given item (doc, file, etc.) could be in any number of logically-assigned places. I know that Johnny Decimal is not the only way to solve this problem, but it worked for me.
And, again, I don’t need to remember any given number … (which is good, as I can’t.)
Hi all. Just for the record, remembering numbers isn’t any requirement of JD.
If you’re the remembering-number kind of brain – as you might imagine, I am – then it can certainly help. But otherwise as @prob notes their main purpose is to keep things in order. And by their decimal nature to restrict you at the first 2 levels to 10 things.
Your index recalls them for you, if you don’t [want to] remember them.
We are all different. I looked at the Johnny Decimal system and didn’t take to it. For me the most important question is “can I find what I am looking for (reasonably quickly)?”. That leads me to consider that search features (such as you get in DEVONthink, Fox Trot Pro and Houdah Spot) are much more important than carefully filing things in groups or folders. If you have good search options it doesn’t matter where something is on the hard drive, you will still find it. I rather like the concept of smart groups/folders because they automatically populate with relevant material without you having to move anything anywhere, and you don’t need to make replicants.
There was an interesting interview not long ago with Jorge Arango about “knowledge gardening”, in which he made the point that folders/groups are for separating things and tags are for collecting them together. Not everyone will agree with that, but I think it is an interesting observation. It is roughly what I have been doing though I hadn’t articulated it so clearly even in my own mind.
Thank you for beginning your post with “We are all different”, a truth too often ignored in these sorts of back-and-forths over best practices.
I relied on tags for a long time and finally realized that in my zeal to do it “right”, I had created so many tags that an ungodly portion of my brain’s RAM was devoted to trying to remember whether my telephone bill was tagged “Telephone”, “Phone”, “Phone”, “Phone Bill” “T-Mobile”, or whatever. Multiple that by the scores or hundreds of categories I could have created, and you’ll understand why I considered joining a monastery.
I understand the elegance of a well-crafted system of tags, and I envy people who can keep tags straight in their heads - I just found my brain works differently.
What I have loved about a decimally-organized folder system is I know exactly where any specific thing is. The phone bills are under in the Phone Bills folder inside the Phones folder inside the House folder. And when I look for it, I don’t get a search result with a bunch of things I’m not looking for. Again, I’m sure other brains can operate a tagging system just as efficiently, but for me this is almost Zen-like. And the decimal system allows me to order the folders in a logical way so my eyes go right to where I need to look without a lot of roaming around.
Where I have found tagging to be irreplaceable is in specific uses, such as in OmniFocus, where one tags tasks with their contexts. But for massive resources, such as my hard drive’s folder structure, I love me my folders.
I structure in several ways. The first layer are folders. Finder tags are exclusively for the editing state. Keywords in Markdown or in the Finder comments are references to the type of document (invoice, contract, etc.).
The reason for this structure is that I also need to be able to share some folders with third parties (business partners, tax consultants). Third parties would not be able to cope with a keyword system (it would not even work in Windows). Folders and file names are therefore a structure that third parties will understand. Keywords are just for me.
I have a background in psychology and I now work as a psychotherapist – I hope that gives me some insight into the differences between individuals I have long thought that the best system is the one we invent for ourselves.
I hardly use tags nowadays. If I were to use them I think I would make text expansion snippets to ensure standardisation (using something like Typinator). When it comes to bills and receipts, they all go in the same folder/group with the date prepended.
Some people seem to feel more need for categorisation than others do. I believe this may partly be due to differences in individual psychology, and may partly be due to the fields or domains in which people are working. The natural sciences seem to encourage or demand rather a lot of categorisation, but I find it more tricky when it comes to thinking about psychology. Sure, we use categories like introvert and extravert, but they have distinctly fuzzy edges. Hence, perhaps, why I am not an ardent “categoriser” of things.
What I view as a central hub of the JD system is its use of an index. If you have all your information in one “place” (hard drive, a single cloud service, etc.), you may not need an index. But if you have your information in multiple places (for me, I use OneDrive, DropBox, Google Drive, and some hard copy files), this is essential as a location device.
Also, even without consulting the index, I find it much easier, given the enforced taxonomy, to locate what I am looking for with fewer clicks. As a prior poster said, I certainly understand how people have different psychological predilections and preferences for diverse approaches.
I also use cloud services, but the “one place” or location device to find things for me is FoxTrot Pro. As it has templates, which are roughly similar to smart groups/folders I can usually find things pretty quickly despite not having filed them carefully. This screenshot shows an example (if not a particularly good one).
In my case I simply found that filing things was exhausting and exacting work that didn’t seem to yield the benefits I was expecting. Indeed, in my case it was worse than useless because it became a displacement activity that I engaged in to give me the feeling that I was doing something useful when I should have been doing something else.
Yes, they are. And if you index folders like OneDrive or Dropbox using DEVONthink then you wouldn’t need FoxTrot. But FoxTrot or HoudahSpot will allow you to search anywhere you like on your computer. Indeed, you can do a basic search that includes DEVONthink databases as well as email, folders on your hard drive, etc, as you can see from the screenshot. So if I’m looking for something I would usually start my search in FoxTrot as that covers so many bases. If I know that something is in DEVONthink then I would begin a search there. However, starting a search with FoxTrot might well turn up things I had forgotten just because they might be in an “out-of-the-way place”.
