DDID

Up: Knowledge management

DDID stands for Denis Defreyne IDentifier. It’s my Johnny.Decimal-inspired ID scheme.

For example:

• 21.0705 is Nanoc
• 11.44.2607 is my project for making a reading nook

These form a hierarchical structure, which is nice because Hierarchies are resilient.

Why?!

This system is engineered to work exactly well enough for my needs, and my ADHD brain. The benefits:

• Fast navigation: The hierarchy means I can navigate to the relevant folder very quickly.

• Search recall: When searching by DDID, I don’t need to worry about ambiguous terms like “apartment” instead of “flat” which could lead to some items not showing up in a search, or items not showing up if I’m searching for huis instead of house.

• Search precision: Only the relevant items get surfaced when searching by DDID.

The extent to how quickly and accurately I find things and not lose things is enviable, frankly. Everyone should be envious.

Construction

The most basic DDID construction is as follows:

1. area (1 digit, e.g. 5)
2. category in area (1 digit, e.g. 2)
3. dot
4. year (2 digits, e.g. 26)
5. month (2 digits, e.g. 01)

For example:

• 2: Software development
  • 21: My software development projects
    • 21.0705: Nanoc
    • 21.2405: ddenv
    • 21.2406: Denis’ Solitaire
    • 21.2506: TomatenMark
    • 21.2510: Deng
• 4: Writing
  • 42: My non-fiction writing
    • 42.2203: My modal lexer article
    • 42.2609: My goal pattern talk
    • 42.2411: My memoization article
• 5: Acting
  • 56: Learning, teaching, coaching
    • 56.2601: A recent class in Berlin
    • 56.2608: My first class in London
• 8: Work
  • 82: My employment
    • 82.2405: My previous employment
    • 82.2512: My current employment

If an ID is already taken, I use the next available one. The month number does not need to be correct; it is merely a convenient default. This means I can end up with an ID that ends with 13, even though there are only 12 months in a year. Or, if I start two projects in the same month, the second project would use next month’s number.

Deeply nested projects

DDIDs can be nested more deeply. In this way, IDs become containers. Such a DDID is constructed as follows:

1. area (1 digit, e.g. 1)
2. category in area (1 digit, e.g. 1)
3. dot
4. an ID (2 digits, e.g. 83)
5. dot
6. year (2 digits, e.g. 26)
7. month (2 digits, e.g. 08)

For example:

• 1: Life
  • 11: Myself
    • 11.16: Visas
      • 11.16.2604: my current UK visa
    • 11.83: Learning
      • 11.83.2608: Learning French
  • 12: Living and getting around
    • 12.11: Renting
      • 12.11.2606: my first London rental
      • 12.11.2610: my second London rental
  • 13: Others
    • 13.22: Long-term correspondence
      • 13.22.2605: Correspondence with A——

Special identifiers

IDs that start with 0 are reserved and have special meaning:

• 00 Schema (an overview of the hierarchy)
• 01 Inbox
• 02 Pre-sorted (for my first pass through the inbox)
• 03 Templates
• 04 Links (to related material)
• 05 Planning (associated to-do items)
• 09 Archive

Locations

I use DDIDs in the following places:

• File system (both active and archived)
• Email (Fastmail)
• To-do lists (OmniFocus)
• Password manager (Kee­Pass­XC)