It’s a crisp autumn morning and you’ve woken up on the right side of the bed – early, without an alarm, shockingly refreshed. The burn-out has lifted its ugly fog, and you’re suddenly ready to work on that big idea you started brainstorming months ago. You make a warm beverage, turn on your computer, and crack your knuckles ready to dig in and –

Wait… Where did those notes go?

They aren’t in your notes app. They aren’t in your project manager.

You check everywhere you can possibly think of.

You’ve already written hundreds, maybe thousands, of words about this idea. Where are they??

Maybe you find the notes, maybe you don’t; either way, the moment has passed. You’re frustrated and your big idea goes on the back burner for a few more months.

I have tried so many different strategies to avoid this type of thing: PARA, PPV, AI-driven organization, MOCs. I even tried completely getting rid of folders and organizing exclusively with tags (never again).

There’s nothing wrong with any of these approaches, but they felt incomplete to me. Like they were designed with only a few things in mind – documents, images, maybe some project files.

Our digital lives are so much richer than that these days, though.

It’s hard to even conceptualize the amount of digital data there is to keep track of. Documents and files, yes, but also bookmarks, screenshots, quick notes, reminders, tasks, codes, voice memos, chat histories, web domains, contact info, GIFs and memes, metrics… I’m not even making a dent with this list.

All of this information is stored on different platforms, each with their own features, limitations, and quirks that generally prevent you from collating everything into a single system.

But what if there was a way to get all of your data into one system?

And what if you could build that all in one system without even changing your tech stack?

Common methodologies often lead to arbitrary organization that doesn’t build out well long-term.

I’ve always been a “shove it in the closet” type of organizer. Out of sight, out of mind. And that actually worked out okay when I was dealing with a handful of college essays and freebie workbooks. It’s a little less practical now that almost every element of my life has some digital component.

The first big overhaul to my digital organization happened about five years ago when I found Notion, PARA, PPV, and everything Marie Poulin has ever published. I’ve kept nearly the same core top-level organization since:

1. Planning & Periodic Notes for daily journals and periodic reviews.
2. Pipeline as a catch-all for projects, habits, and tasks.
3. Personal HQ for all other items related to my personal life.
4. Business HQ for professional stuff.
5. Resources for notes, sources, courses, and all of my other learning stuff.

But since migrating from Notion to Obsidian, I’ve determined that all that set-up really accomplished was building more closets to shove more stuff into.

It never solved “the problem” – the need for a system to help me build as comprehensive an archive of my life as possible, so that I trust when I sit down to do a thing, I know I have quick access to every tool, idea, resources, and piece of context I might want.

The root of that need is that I don’t want to feel like I’m missing something.

You know that feeling when you’re about to leave the house, but can tell you forgot to grab your wallet or keys? I get that same feeling about digital stuff – I want to feel certain that I have everything on hand I need to move forward comfortably and effectively.

If I feel like I could be doing better work, it often stops me from working at all. I never want my organizational system to be the reason that happens.

Let’s look at some of the actual data and artifacts I was struggling to keep track of:

- Tickets for an upcoming concert
- My license plate number (needed for paid parking)
- Reminder to renew my car registration
- Toll notices to pay 
- Scans of my paper journals
- Printable planner pages
- Printable planner stickers
- Class plans for my dance studio
- Studio schedule
- List of my active domains and where they're hosted
- Nice messages from family
- Testimonials from clients
- Cards and letters

This isn’t too hard to fit into that original core system. Tickets and car stuff are Personal, printable stuff would be considered Resources, I guess testimonials would go in Business. Items related to teaching dance are a little complicated; dance is a personal hobby, but teaching is a job – still doesn’t quite fit in Business though, does it?

I could make it work, and it’s a fine start, but this is only a list of 13 examples. What happens when I’m looking at hundreds and hundreds of things that need to be put away?

The first big issue here – and with a lot of common organizing methodologies – is the lack of clear scope. The categories I’m using are so broad that there’s a lot of gray area, which requires me to constantly make judgement calls about where things go. And then remember where I put them. Good luck with that!

The second big issue is that not everything is actually a file. Some information, like my license plate number, is just a snippet of data I need on hand. Our lives are full of a ton of tiny reference notes like this, or recurring tasks like renewing my car registration. Creating individual files or documents for all of them seems like it would create a ton of unnecessary bloat in most cases.

Finally, and the biggest sticking point for me, is the lack of connectivity.

Imagine that one of the Nice messages from family is actually a thank-you note for purchasing Tickets for an upcoming concert. It’s important to me that both of these items live in as much context as possible: when looking at the information I’ve saved about this concert, I want to know that my family member sent a thank-you note; when I revisit the thank-you note, I want it to be clear what they were thanking me for; when I look at the information I have about this family member, I want to know about both the concert and the thank-you note.

This kind of “communication” and deep contextualization isn’t possible in common file structures where each item lives separate from the others.

After years of trying to work around these problems, and seeing how they all fed into each other to turn my digital spaces into a chaotic mess, I finally found the solution I’ve been looking for.

The Johnny Decimal System is an alternative method for organizing your entire digital life in a way that grows with you.

The Johnny Decimal System is a hierarchy of Areas, Categories, and IDs.

Think of an ID as a single manilla folder; it might have one sheet of paper or dozens of pages (I call those “pages” items in my version of a JD system). That folder is put into a filing cabinet drawer next to similar IDs – that drawer is your Category. And each drawer needs a filing cabinet to live in – that’s an Area.

Let’s keep it really simple and imagine you’re trying to organize a list of colors using the JD system. You have:

- Red
- Blue
- Yellow
- Orange
- Green
- Purple
- Red-Orange
- Red-Purple
- Yellow-Orange
- Yellow-Green
- Blue-Green
- Blue-Purple
- Black
- White
- Brown
- Gray
- Brown
- Beige

Dividing these into categories, you might have:

- Primary Colors
	- Red
	- Blue
	- Yellow
- Secondary Colors
	- Orange
	- Green
	- Purple
- Tertiary Colors
	- Red-Orange
	- Red-Purple
	- Yellow-Orange
	- Yellow-Green
	- Blue-Green
	- Blue-Purple
- Neutral Colors
	- Black
	- White
	- Gray
	- Brown
	- Beige

In that example, each individual color is an ID and the Primary / Secondary / Tertiary / Neutral headers are categories. Theoretically, this could all live in one area: Colors. Alternatively, you might separate the colors and neutrals for a complete set-up that looks like this:

- AREA: Colors
	- CATEGORY: Primary Colors
		- ID: Red
			- ITEM: HEX Code
			- ITEM: Shades and Tints
		- Blue
			- HEX Code
			- Shades and Tints
		- Yellow
	- Secondary Colors
		- Orange 
		- Green
		- Purple
	- Tertiary Colors
		- Red-Orange
		- Red-Purple
		- Yellow-Orange
		- Yellow-Green
		- Blue-Green
		- Blue-Purple
- AREA: Neutrals
	- True Neutrals
		- White
		- Black
	- Expanded Neutrals
		- Gray
		- Brown
		- Beige

With this system, you would have one filing cabinet for Colors and one filing cabinet for Neutrals. In the Colors filing cabinet, you would have drawers labeled Primary Colors, Secondary Colors, and Tertiary Colors. In the Primary Colors drawer, you would have folders for Red, Blue, and Yellow. And finally, in each of those folders, you would have one sheet of paper for the color’s HEX codes and one sheet of paper for the shades and tints. In the Neutrals filing cabinet, then, you would have a drawer for True Neutrals, and so on.

Let’s say that each filing cabinet has ten usable drawers. Drawers 00 - 09 are in the Colors filing cabinet, and drawers 10 - 19 are in the Neutrals filing cabinet.

This gives us our area labels: 00 - 09 COLORS and 10 - 19 NEUTRALS.

Now we can assign a “drawer number” to each category based on which area it’s in:

00 - 09 COLORS
- 00. Empty 
- 01. Primary Colors
- 02. Secondary Colors
- 03. Tertiary Colors
- 04. Empty
- 05. Empty
- 06. Empty
- 07. Empty
- 08. Empty
- 09. Empty

10 - 19 NEUTRALS
- 11. True Neutrals
- 12. Expanded Neutrals
- 13. Empty

You’ll notice I’ve left the first drawer in each filing cabinet empty. The JD System encourages you to use this space for “meta” information; I’ve found that useful, but you could just as easily assign Primary Colors to drawer 00 – this is up to you.

You’ll also see that there are a lot of empty drawers. This is what helps your system grow with you over time. If you decide that you’d like to add Metallic Colors, for example, you don’t have to overhaul your system to make it fit; you can just add that to drawer 04 in the Colors filing cabinet.

Once numbers have been applied to Areas and Categories, you can start thinking about IDs. The ID in a Johnny Decimal System is a four-digit reference number that starts with your category:

00 - 09 COLORS
- 00. Empty 
- 01. Primary Colors
	- 01.01 Red
	- 01.02 Blue
	- 01.03 Yellow
- 02. Secondary Colors
	- 02.01 Orange
	- 02.02 Green
	- 02.03 Purple
- 03. Tertiary Colors
	- 03.01 Red-Orange
	- 03.02 Red-Purple
	- 03.03 Yellow-Orange
	- 03.04 Yellow-Green
	- 03.05 Blue-Green
	- 03.06 Blue-Purple
- 04. Empty
- 05. Empty
- 06. Empty
- 07. Empty
- 08. Empty
- 09. Empty

10 - 19 NEUTRALS
- 11. True Neutrals
	- 11.01 White
	- 11.02 Black
- 12. Expanded Neutrals
	- 12.01 Gray
	- 12.02 Brown
	- 12.03 Beige
- 13. Empty

This is a complete Johnny Decimal System layout. We have our items (HEX codes, shades, and tints) inside our IDs (e.g, 01.01 Red), which are collected into Categories (e.g, 01. Primary Colors), which are collected into Areas (00 - 09 Colors).

Similar to expanding with the empty drawers, you have space for up to 100 IDs in each category; if you’d like to add something like “Taupe” to this system, you can just add it as 12.04 Taupe to your 12. Expanded Neutrals drawer.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve reached this point and still feel like, “??? Isn’t this just folders and subfolders with numbers?”

Yes, and. Let’s get to the real good stuff.

The Index is the Johnny Decimal System’s secret superpower that has changed how I think about my digital world.

If you're skimming, this is where you want to lock back in!!!

I checked out the JD website half a dozen times before I actually tried implementing the system. Every time, I managed to miss theeeeeee most important concept in the whole thing.

The friggin’ Index.

This is the game-changer. This is what makes the JD System different from ever other method you’ve ever read about it. If I could marry the concept of the Index, well, butter my biscuit and call me a bride 🥵

I need you to forget everything you know about digital organization and bear with me, because if this is right for you the way it was for me, you really want to absorb this.

Each ID gets a note in a note-taking app. This is your JD System.

Here’s a screenshot of my index notes, kept in Obsidian:

Each ID has a page in Obsidian, but not every item that would be in that metaphorical manilla folder can live in Obsidian. This is where we run into the all-in-one system debacle: the actual items related to these IDs live across several different cloud storage accounts, apps, and more. Meanwhile, remember, some of the items aren’t files at all, but snippets of data or information.

The index addresses this:

From this index page, I can immediately open my insurance policy PDF in Google Drive, or I can open my insurance Gmail label (which also includes the ID 42.22 in the title); I can log into my insurance account, or can easily reference my policy number. I even have a task listed here – outside of my actual project management app – so I know it’s something I need to work on, but don’t need to dedicate time to immediately.

I haven’t done it in this screenshot, but I can also link this ID to related IDs, like 42.21 Car Registration and 42.23 Car Maintenance using these index notes so that all vehicle related IDs are connected. Another problem solved: interconnectivity between my different information.

Your index is the only place your entire JD System has to be documented. I don’t have every single ID in Google Drive or Gmail or anywhere else – just the IDs related to that software.

So, for example, 41.13 Vaccination Records is an ID in Google Drive because that’s where I keep PDFs of, well, my vaccination records. But that ID is not in Gmail, because this isn’t something I get any emails about.

Meanwhile, I have 43.33 Debt Repayment in Gmail (for repayment receipts) and Airtable (repayment tracking), but not in Google Drive.

Every single ID, however, regardless of where individual files are stored, can be found in Obsidian. The index note for the ID is where I keep quick notes, tasks, external links, internal links, and aaaaaanything else related to it.

Your index is the single source of truth pulling from the rest of your digital ecosystem.

It’s where you navigate and work from; it’s the first place you go for any project or task; it ensures minimal overlap in your system and entirely prevents you from reusing IDs accidentally.

It’s what makes this whole thing work.

Backing up a bit to put this all together, the Johnny Decimal System works like this:

• You have up to ten Areas that can each house up to ten Categories that can each hold up to 100 IDs.
• Each Area is assigned a number range; each category is assigned a two-digit number; and each ID is assigned a four-digit number, the first two of which are identical to the category it’s in.
• Each ID is given a page in a note app (or database, or wherever you want to keep it – a notes app is easiest and typically works faster than a database). This creates your Index. Each ID’s index page should list where the ID’s items live, as well as any quick-notes you need for the ID.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. And it’s completely changed my life.

I said this in an email to Johnny, but it’s worth repeating whenever I talk about it: This is the first time I’ve ever trusted my system more as it grows.

It took a ton of front-loaded work that I spent an embarrassing amount of time on. But the result has absolutely surpassed my expectations.

I have all of my most-accessed IDs memorized without even trying; I can navigate all of my files using keyboard shortcuts; I don’t doubt that I have everything inventoried, because everything fits so neatly into my list of IDs.

How to start building out your own system

I’ve hesitated writing about the JD System because it’s very iceberg-y. It’s real easy to see what’s happening at the top, but the more you dig, the bigger and more complex the whole thing gets.

Next week, I’ll show you my entire system structure and talk some more about how I finalized all the different IDs, but if this resonated and you’d like to get started on your own system ASAP, here are some tips:

1. Read the Core Concepts on the JD website thoroughly at least twice. Make sure you’re entirely clear on the differences between the levels of hierarchy, what constitutes an ID, etc.
2. Think about whether this system would actually work for you once you’re clear on what it entails. I am very structure-and-routine oriented. This type of thing helps my creativity, but it might hinder yours. Be realistic about your work style, preferences, and whether you’d actually get anything out of this type of organization.
3. If you’re still on board, get the workbook. It walks you through developing your system in more detail.
4. Once you’re ready to start building, follow the advice. Johnny says to start braindumping all of your stuff on paper – he’s right, I wasted a ton of time doing this digitally. Johnny says to wait until you’re done to assign IDs – he’s right, I also wasted a ton of time renumbering things over and over. Johnny says to take at least a week thinking about what you’re trying to organize – he’s right, I thought I had it figured out in a couple of days and that ended up setting me back weeks (seriously).
5. Keep in mind that you can have multiple systems. One of the things that’s taken me so long is that I tried to fit every single element of my life and work into one system. It was possible, but it didn’t feel “right”. Instead of trying to fit all of my client stuff, for example, into my system, I’m just building different systems out for each of them 😅

This is already long and it’s Friday, so I’m gonna stop yapping and get to playing Cities: Skylines. I am dyinggg to know if any readers decide to try this out, though, so please reply to this email if you do!

Hope you had a good week <3

Talk soon,
Vics