The standard zeros

What happened to 00-09?

You may be wondering why we started our:

  • Areas at 10-19 and not 00-09,

  • Categories at 11 rather than 10,

  • IDs at .11 rather than .00 or .01.

Why don't we use these numbers?

We reserve them for the system

Sometimes you want to keep information about the system, in the system. And sometimes you want to keep special things 'at the top' with a consistent number.

This is simplest to describe from the bottom-up. This also mirrors how useful I find them: the category-level IDs are more useful than the area-level, which in turn are more useful than the system-level.

Note: this is definitely an advanced concept. It's okay to ignore this until you're really comfortable with Johnny.Decimal. And a heads up that some of the figures below use AC.ID notation.

Category-management IDs

Within each category, the following IDs are standard. Use them when you want to manage information or data specific to the category.

.00 JDex

If you need to, this reserved ID is where you store category-specific JDex data. For example, you might describe why you designed a category the way you did.

.01 Inbox

A place to store something that you intend to organise soon.

When building your system, this can be particularly useful. Design your categories, create inboxes, and as a first step move your existing stuff in to them.

You must tidy this up regularly. Don't let anything sit here: you will forget about it.

.02 Task & project management

A place to manage tasks that relate to this category.

'Tasks' in this context means any thing to be done. This might be more expansive projects, or you might use it to store checklists for items that repeat.

e.g. store a video recording checklist here and run through it before you record a video for your blog.

.03 Templates

A place to store templates that might be used in this category.

e.g. in our creative system, we copy the same eight folders to every new job. These empty folders are stored at 50.03.

A place to store links that relate to this category.

I tend not to use my browser bookmarks. Instead, I record interesting links in a note in my JDex. This way I can annotate them with descriptive text, and they're easy to find.

This is particularly useful at work with a shared system.

e.g. create a shared note that links to all of the places you always log in to, like the timesheet system.

.05 .06 .07 .08

Reserved for expansion. Do not use.

.09 Archive

A place to store something that you do not intend to organise, but do not want to throw away.

This folder might be chaos: that's fine. If there's stuff in here that should be organised, move it to .01.

Name them explicitly

Make it obvious what these items relate to.

e.g. 11.01 Inbox for category 11.

Figure 62.21A. Summary of the category-management IDs.

Area-management categories

Within each area, the category that ends 0 is the area-management category. We name them so that this is explicit.

e.g. 10 Management of area 10-19.

This is a less specific place than the category-level IDs we just saw. You should prefer to use those where possible. But if you have something that relates to the whole area, use the zeros here.

So if you have stuff you want to archive related to 10-19 Life admin, and you can't decide on a specific category, put it in 10.09 Archive for area 10-19.

Figure 62.21B. Summary of the area-management categories.

System-management area

00-09 System-management area is the system-management area. ;-) This is less specific again than the area-management categories. You should prefer to use those where possible.

In this area, we create a standard category 00 System-management category.

So if you have something you want to store in an inbox but you have no idea which area it relates to, put it in 00.01 Inbox for the system.

Figure 62.21C. Summary of the system-management area.

00.00 JDex

This is a very important location: it holds the system's index/JDex.

This is the very first ID. If you were lost, where would you look? You'd start at the beginning. That's how to think about 00.00.

Your JDex might not be here. I keep mine in Bear, which has its own way of handling notes. But you should tell yourself, using this JDex entry, where the system's JDex is.

And if you do use an app that keeps notes on disk, like Obsidian, then those notes should live here.

Also see the 'single file' JDex method.

A map

The pattern in area 10-19 repeats for all higher area numbers, and similarly for the categories.

Figure 62.21D. A map of the standard zeros.

A decision chart

When saving data, you should prefer the most specific zero.

Figure 62.21E. Which 'zero' to use? The further down, the less organised you are.

Related forum post: Alternative layout for the standard zeros.