The Johnny.Decimal system is a methodical way to structure, save, and recall files, emails, notes, or anything else: even physical items. It enforces simple constraints so you can't lose anything, and gives you a unique identifier that you can attach to any item, and use anywhere.
Think of it like your personal Dewey Decimal system. You wouldn't want to use a disorganised library ā so why are your own files chaos? People have been using it to organise their lives for over a decade. It's simple, and it works.
And now you don't even have to design your own system ā you wouldn't design your own library! We've taken a decade of experience and created two ready-to-go systems, as well as the software that helps you manage them. So you literally can be more organised in minutes. Just sign up, download your system, and move in.
Countless online courses will tell you how to be more organised. This is the only product that does it for you. We spent months building it so that you don't need to.
This ready-made system is designed to handle the 'life admin' that we all need to manage: your personal and household records, finances, technology, and entertainment. If it's something that most people do, we've got it covered.
This is the system that Johnny uses to manage his own life.
Life Admin doesn't include a place for your personal interests: your hobbies, or that community club you run. We can't design those for you, because we don't know what you do.
If you want to build your own system, Decimal.University is for you. It includes our 5-hour video course, where you follow along as Johnny teaches Lucy how to build her own system. We recorded it so that you feel like the second student: you do the same exercises as Lucy, who has the sorts of questions you'll be asking yourself.
This is backed up by the 120+ page workbook: a methodical, step-by-step guide to creating new systems. We use the workbook as our course curriculum.
Over time, we'll be adding more courses to Decimal.University. Next is a series where we will show you a calm, focused way to manage your tasks & projects with the Johnny.Decimal system.
Between us we have decades of experience as freelancers, independent contractors, and now owners of a two-person business.
The Small Business System contains everything that you might need: business administration including company records, premises and vehicles, finance, technology, and travel.
Then for your product and sales we have categories for products, suppliers, equipment, processes, inventory, marketing, channels, customers, orders, & shipping.
It also has two areas for all of your creative artefacts and jobs, so you'll never lose your logo again.
And we're building operations manuals to tell you how to do a bunch of common business stuff. We all need to back up our IT systems, but you're probably not an IT nerd. Don't figure this out yourself ā that's inefficient. Let us do that for you.
We designed it to cover any type of businesses, up to about 10 staff. We use it to manage our own business.
Click here to see how it can help yours.
Our pre-made systems are designed to be as simple as possible to start. You sign up, download the folder structure to your computer, and move in.
We've even got a moving in guide to make it as easy as possible for you. And we're always here to help: there's an active forum, Discord, or you can mail us directly.
Johnny.Decimal's goal is to help you find stuff quickly, with more confidence, and less stress. So the systems are designed to make it impossible for you to lose stuff.
The first way we do this is by designing a clear system where nothing can be more than a few clicks away. Let's say you want to save the details of that expensive laptop you just bought: you'll need the receipt when you do your tax return, and maybe for a warranty claim later.
In the Life Admin System, we have 5 categories to choose from. The only one
of those it can be in is 14 Technology. In there, you see a
section header for 14.10 ā Computers & other devices. And now
we have 14.11 My computers & servers. Easy.
And guess where it is at the larger Small Business System? It's in the same place. We've designed these systems to share structure where possible, so if you're familiar with one, you'll already be at home in the other.
If you'd rather just use search, that's easy. Search for laptop, and there's 14.11 along with other laptop-related IDs. (You've
remembered to back it up, yes?ā¦) [[SCREENSHOT OF SEARCH SHOWING 14.23]]
The Internet is full of people who'll claim to help you get organised. Most of their credentials are that they have ā¦ a blog about getting organised?
Johnny was an IT professional for 30 years, most of that spent managing complex projects. He came up with this system in 2010. Since then he's used it to manage multi-million dollar projects for national banks and federal government departments; and as Johnny.Decimal he's helped thousands of people to be more organised.
Lucy was a professional writer and editor. So she knows how to convey information, while keeping it tight. Together, we decided to quit our jobs and spend our lives helping people like you to be more organised.
We also made a conscious decision to be good Internet citizens. You might notice that nothing has popped up asking for your email address yet, that there are no ads or cookie requests, and that your content blocker isn't working overtime.
We don't do any of that stuff. There are no sleazy sales tactics. No countdown clocks urging you to buy now or miss a deal. If you sign up, we don't email you every day. Imagine that! You just get a good product built by good people who respect your time.
Here are some nice things people have told us.
Finally ā this one's my favourite ā an anonymous user on Discord said "Thank you johnny.decimal with your principle I finally find the inner peace". Because that is our goal: to give you a sense of calm when you use your computer.
(We always ask people if we can use these quotes, and this person said yes, but without their name.)
Only ever on your computer. I never want your files, and have no way of storing them.
After you sign up, you'll download a folder structure that you install on your own computer. You can store it in your cloud drive (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive) or anywhere else you want.
Not one piece. Johnny and Lucy are two humans who take enormous pride in their work. They create everything themselves, by hand.
We literally spent months creating these systems. They are the result of thousands of hours of human work.
This means that we know these systems intimately. We can answer any questions you have, and we'll continue to improve them based on feedback from the community.
Yes. After signing up, you can download a set of Markdown files that you can use with any text editor. We recommend and support Obsidian and Bear.
This becomes your JDex ā a core Johnny.Decimal concept that we'll explain in the onboarding videos.
For those of you who don't want to have to use a separate notes app, we're building simple note-taking functionality into this site. Coming Q4 2025.
All of our products come with a 14-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Your purchase is risk-free.
You'll never lose access to the stuff you've organised. It's yours, under your control, on your computer.
But you'll lose access to this website, any of its features and content, and any functionality we add in the future.