Today, I experienced the delightful surprise of encountering a fresh organization system named Johnny Decimal. I suspect I may have come across it in the past, but I never really absorbed or fully read through it. This system was highlighted a while ago on HACKADAY, but that’s not where I discovered it.
Currently, I utilize a variety of systems: I mostly apply Inbox Zero to my emails and use Getting Things Done to arrange my tasks. I store my files in Google Drive and keep my notes in Notion.
The Johnny Decimal system essentially divides the top tier into folders labelled from 1 to 100, which are further organized into sets of 10 such as 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, and so forth, with an exclusive group, 00-09, allocated for overview material.
Within the 10-19 folder, you’ll find folders numbered 11 to 19, devoid of any other folders or files. Inside these, you arrange things with labels like 11.01, 11.02, and so on up to 11.10. This is where you store your material.
Hence, the top two tiers are exclusively folders, organized in a unique numerical pattern, and absolutely no files are allowed directly within these folders.
What struck me when I began to use this system was how it prompted me to reassess how I categorize and place my belongings. As I began sorting, it became clear that some items were misplaced, and the appropriate spots for them became evident.
The two-tier folder-only structure, arranged in a specific numerical sequence, provides a neat and clean visual. No longer do random files clutter the space around folders. With ten sets of ten files within ten files, there is essentially enough room for everything you need in each folder.
The example structure from the documentation:
My Notion now looks like this:
And my Google Drive now looks like this:
Matthew Felgate 