# About These Notes *Replaces [[20250402-N1 About These Notes]]* - [[#Introduction]] - [[#My Journal]] - [[#Vault Management]] and [[#Folder Hierarchy]] - [[#Naming Conventions]] ## Introduction This "digital notebook" is an extension of my paper [[20230824-R2.21 My Notebooks|Notebooks]]—a space for thinking through words. The main functional advantages of a digital notebook such as this are: - I can carry thousands of pages of my writing with me all the time, approximately 17,000 as of [[2025-05-26|now]]. - I can link notes to each other to provide context and commentary. - I can retrieve anything I've written nearly instantly. My notes consist of plain text files in [[20210418-N2 Markdown|markdown]] format, which ought to be readable by most computer systems for the foreseeable future, but there are a few other file types in a folder labelled **22 Attachments**. My hope is that everything I write will start here and remain searchable, accessible, and preserved for decades to come. This is a lofty goal. --- ## My Journal Nearly half of my digital notebook consists of journal entries—some 6,000 pages or so—going back to my middle school English composition notebook. I painstakingly transcribed all of my old paper [[20230824-R2.21 My Notebooks|Notebooks]] into an app called [[Day One]], and then [[2021-02-07|later]] I exported them all here to [[20230619-R2 Obsidian|Obsidian]]. I also exported all my old LiveJournal posts, along with all of the weblog entries I've managed to recover. My [[#00 Journal]] folder is divided by year, and each entry is recorded in [ISO 8601 format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601)(`YYYY-MM-DD`) with one entry per date, such that today's entry for Monday, May 26, 2025 can be found here: [[2023-05-26]]. ^ahjsuk --- ## Vault Management There are several tools that make it easier to work within [[20230619-R2 Obsidian|Obsidian]] that can all be found within the [[#20 Vault Management]] folder. These include a handful of [[#23 Templates]] and [[#24 Dataviews]] that allow me to create and manipulate files within the vault, but the most important folder is titled ***21 Indices***. Each file in [[#21 Indices]] is an index or table of contents for a larger project whose files exist elsewhere in the vault. The only two top-level notes are this one, [[! 20240601-C1 Hello World!|the landing page for my website]] and [[! 20240511-R2.01 EMERGENCY!!!]], an index of resources that would be essential in the event of various emergencies. I want to use bats `!` sparingly—their main function as prefixes to file names is to ensure they appear first in search results and alphabetical file listings. ### Folder Hierarchy #### ! Active Focii - In proper [[20200916-N2 Getting Things Done (GTD)|GTD]] fashion, I consider a "project" to be any time-bound objective with a measurable outcome that takes more than a single action to complete. **! Active Focii** is a folder that requires weekly reviews for relevance to prevent it from becoming unmanageable, and I don't think it's feasible to commit to more than ten at a time (although this is a soft limit.) - I'm starting to feel like this folder is redundant to the root folder of my digital notebook—it's just one more place to check, and keeping active notes at the top level seems like a better way to keep engaging with them. #### 00 Journal - All "Daily Notes Pages" live here, as well as some monthly [[20211116-X2 Mental Inventory|Mental Inventory]] and concatenated review pages, divided into folders by year. ##### 01 Logs - A collection of specific focuses I'm trying to track, like [[20240206-R2.01 Writing Log|Writing Log]], [[20240122-R2.01 Bread Log|Bread Log]], and [[20240331-R2.01 Timery Log|Timery Log]]. #### 10 Personal Life - Notes pertaining to my family, time management, correspondence, and home maintenance. #### 20 Vault Management - Notes that pertain to the construction, development, management, or retrieval of notes in this Vault. ##### 21 Indices - Notes that are, themselves, collections of references to other notes, like indexes, tables of contents, brainstorming maps, etc. See [[20240103-R2 Index of Indices|Index of Indices]]. ##### 22 Attachments - Any file that does not end in a `.md` extension. ##### 23 Templates - Standardized note forms that I reuse frequently enough to make a template for them. ##### 24 Dataviews - Any note that leverages the [[20230208-R2 Dataview (plugin)|Dataview]] plugin so I can assure myself my primary Vault does not rely on it too heavily. (Astute readers will notice that there are many lingering [[#00 Journal|Daily Notes]] with extensive Dataview snippets, but that's only because I had such a hard time stripping them.) ##### 25 Scripts - Barely used, but if when I want to automate my workflows using something like [[20230611-N2 QuickAdd (plugin)|QuickAdd]] or [[20230113-R2 Templater (plugin)|Templater]], and I want to use `.js` files, they go here. ##### 26 Canvases - A "Canvas" is a specific form of Obsidian note that operates like a cork board where you can freely connect and rearrange different notes (or even duplicates of the same note). Since this format is currently unreadable by other apps, I want to silo them away to facilitate potential future migration to different note-taking platforms. ##### 27 Buttons - [[20220106-W! Buttons Worksheet|Buttons]] is a great Obsidian plugin that lets you create custom buttons to accomplish specific actions. #### 20 Writing & Creativity - Right...so I'm supposed to move my [[#20 Vault Management]] folder into [[#70 Digital Tools & Systems]], where I decided my [[#72 Obisidian]] folder should live, but I haven't done that yet. [[20230113-R2 Templater (plugin)|Templater]] and [[20230611-N2 QuickAdd (plugin)|QuickAdd]]—not to mention [[Drafts (App)]]—have a bunch of dependencies on the locations of files in Vault Management, and I'm not *quite* ready to take that plunge just yet. So I have to `20` directories. Bad data hygiene, but it's a living vault. ##### 22 My Writing ###### 22.01 W1 Assorted Nonfiction - Essays, weblog entries, and other attempts at writing. ~72,000 words. ###### 22.02 W2 Assorted Fiction - Short fiction, abandoned drafts, and other attempts at writing. ~42,000 words. ###### 22.08 W2 "Everything's Totally Manageable" (ETM) - Several attempts at a semi-autobiographical novel, written over the course of a decade. ~1,300,000 words. ###### 22.09 W2 "Ash Rises" - An unfinished series of zombie novels and short stories. ~188,000 words. ###### 22.11 W2 "Chaz the Destroyer" - A short story I drafted with assistance from [[20220425-R1W2 Plotto Story Worksheet|Plotto]]. ~8,000 words. ###### 22.12 W2 "Eden and Prometheus" - An unfinished short story about artificial intelligence. ~5,000 words. ###### 22.13 W2 "Serial Failure" - Another short story I drafted with assistance from [[20220629-R1W2 Plotto Story Worksheet|Plotto]]. ~13,000 words. ###### 22.14 W! "The Truth Behind ETM" - An unfinished essay collection about the true events that inspired [[#22.08 W2 "Everything's Totally Manageable" (ETM)]]. ~83,000 words. ###### 22.15 W1 "Primitive Serenity" - An essay about camping. Probably belongs in [[#22.01 W1 Assorted Nonfiction]], but contains multiple drafts. ~5,000 words. ###### 22.16 W1 IanLHayes Weblog - An old weblog—wait this one might be the current one. ~55,000 words. #### 30 Community & Collaboration ##### 33 Portland NET ###### 33.01 Roseway Prepares - A group of individuals consisting of trained NET members and interested neighbors who have come together to help the Roseway neighborhood prepare for emergencies. ###### 33.02 Print communications - Forms and brochures pertaining to emergency preparedness. ###### 33.03 Radio Communications - Information on emergency radios and communication protocols. ###### 33.04 Personal & Family Preparedness - Everybody needs an emergency operations and emergency communications plan! ###### 33.05 Portland Public Schools Earthquake Preparedness - Some information about the 2025 Portland Public Schools bond proposal and unreinforced masonry structures. ##### 34 Parent Teacher Association (PTA) - Here, an interesting thing happens: I like the [[20221223-N2 Johnny Decimal System|Johnny Decimal System]] enough that I wanted to implement it for my local PTA. When it comes to managing multiple systems, JD suggests prepending a letter to the Area designation and starting the second system's areas over from `00` after the decimal. ###### S34.00 Digital Accounts Management ###### S34.10 Administration & Operations ###### S34.20 Finance ###### S34.30 Events & Activities ###### S34.40 Communication & Graphics ###### S34.60 Facilities & Supplies ###### S34.90 Archives & Historical Record #### 40 Education & Learning ##### 42 Possible Graduate Studies ###### 42.02 Psychology - Just some notes from the psychology books I've been reading. ##### 44 Assorted Reading Notes - Notes from other books I've been reading. ##### 45 Assorted Questions - Things I want to learn more about. #### 50 Work & Career ##### 56 Pot Mates ###### 56.05 Cannabis Research - Information I've collected for my copywriting job. ###### 56.06 Templates - Reusable product description and email copy. ###### 56.07 Administration - Even though it's just a contract copywriting job, there some workflow optimizations I want to keep track of. #### 60 Projects & Hobbies ##### 67 Gardening ###### 67.03 2024 Garden - A record of my garden planning process for 2024. ###### 67.04 2025 Garden - A record of my garden planning process for 2025. ##### 68 Video Projects ##### 68.01 Murder House Retrospective - My notes, shot list, and script drafts for a video I'm making about our time with the Murder House. #### 70 Digital Tools & Systems ##### 72 Obsidian ###### 72.01 Obsidian Administration - Notes about my plans for managing my Obsidian Vault. ##### 73 Automation ###### 73.02 Filename Conversion Outbox - As I waffle on my [[20231002-N2 File System Information Manager|file naming conventions]], I need a place for files after they've been renamed through a [[20240106-R2.01 Keyboard Maestro Log|Keyboard Maestro macro]]. #### 76 Hardware ###### 76.01 Computers - Just keeping track of my computers. ###### 76.02 Peripherals - Additional computer peripherals. #### 77 Drafts ###### 77.01 Drafts Actions - [[Drafts (App)]] is such an amazing, extensible app. This is where I keep track of my customizations. #### 90 Archives - Literally everything that doesn't fit into the above categories, catalogued only with the [[#Naming Conventions]] outlined below and casual tagging. I'm working on getting them sorted into their proper folders. #### 100 Trudy List Temp - Without getting too deep into the weeds, my late aunt Trudy Fisher recommended an exercise to get a handle on what I most enjoy doing in life that consists of listing everything I've ever done, assigning a level of enjoyment to each (on a scale of one to ten,) indicating whether I prefer to do them alone or with others and if they're something I think I *should* be doing. Using YAML frontmatter properties and [[#24 Dataviews|Dataview]], I expect to be able to simplify the process of interpreting the results, so this folder exists for much the same reason as [[#99 Temp]]—it's a temporary container that adds the appropriate properties fields to each new note within it before the note is filed away into the [[#90 Archives]]. --- ## Naming Conventions ### Folders I use a modified [Johnny Decimal]([https://johnnydecimal.com]()https://johnnydecimal.com/) system (imaginatively titled the [[20240404-N2 Hayes Johnny Decimal System|Hayes Johnny Decimal System]]) that assigns all top-level folders a two-digit integer prefix to give each a fixed spatial location in my sidebar. The system is designed to be flexible, personal, and intuitive (to the person who created it,) and I hope to eventually use it to catalogue all my computer folders. ### Notes On [[2023-09-19]], I was persuaded to start naming and categorizing my files based on the ISO 8601 standard [[#^ahjsuk|mentioned above]] and five primary categories. This gives the entire database a chronological hierarchy and enough classification that I can quickly distinguish between different file types...with the exception of this file, naturally. Each filename outside of the [[#00 Journal]] folder is save in the format `YYYYMMDD-? Name of File` where `?` is replaced with one of five letters and an optional subcategory `1` or `2`. Generally, `1` refers to something that originated with me or my life experience, and `2` refers to something that originated elsewhere. In the case of a *project*, I sometimes find it useful to append the project type (in the case of a writing project) such that, for instance, [[20170828-R1W2 "The Education of Jason Fuller" Unfinished Draft Index]] is easily identified as a work of fiction, but this may be redundant, superfluous, or both. ### C — Correspondence - C! — Correspondence to be catalogued. - C1 — Outgoing correspondence (correspondence that originated with me.) - C2 — Incoming correspondence (correspondence addressed to me.) ### N — My Notes (something I wrote about something) - N! — Notes to be catalogued. - N1 — Spontaneous (thoughts that originated with me.) - N2 — Prompted (thoughts I had in response to something else.) ### R — Records - R! — Incomplete projects. - R1 — Completed or abandoned projects. - R2 — Reference records (discrete entities, such as books, films, events, indices, persons, or organizations.) ### W — Works of My Own Creation (with Some Specific intention) - W! — Works to be catalogued, or multimedia files like tools (such as [[#23 Templates]], [[#24 Dataviews]], or [[#25 Scripts]]) I use to manage other notes and most [[#22 Attachments]]. - W1 — Nonfiction writing. - W2 — Fiction writing. ### X — Others' Notes - X! — Others' notes to be catalogued. - X1 — Notes with my annotations (highlights, comments, paraphrases, etc.) - X2 — Unaltered notes (direct quotes or complete works, with proper attribution.) ### Examples - [[! 20240601-C1 Hello World!]] - [[20160928-C2 Customer Reviews of My Performance]] - [[20210909-N1 How I Write a Novel]] - [[20231002-N2 File System Information Manager]] - [[20230301-R1 Banquette]] - [[20211225-R2 The Writing Life]] - [[20230905-W! IanLHayes Weblog Workbench]] - [[20230902-W1 In Search of a Foundation]] - [[20130719-W2 "The No. 9" Welcome Party]] - [[20211014-X2 Life is composed of days]] - [[20231004-X2 iOS Share and Capture — Drafts]] ### Notebook Naming Conventions I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that I also have a specific format I'm using to refer to my [[20230824-R2.21 My Notebooks|Notebooks]]. Essentially, the first two letters refer to the notebook's manufacturer (LT for Leuchtturm1917, MS for Moleskine, MN for Mnemosyne, etc.) while the following Roman numeral indicates which volume of that collection it is. The year ought to be self-explanatory, but in case it warrants further clarification, it's intended to be the year I began using that notebook. An example would be `LT-XIV`, representing my fourteenth Leuchtturm 1917 volume. Page number references can be appended to the notebook designation, e.g. `LT-XIV-03`.