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Comment by oneeyedpigeon | Hacker News Reader

I think having a system is more important than which system it is. I don't see much benefit to limiting your hierarchy to 3 levels. Putting metadata like creation time in filenames is probably the wrong thing to do, since it's redundant, although it's mighty tempting-and I do it all the time.

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I have found that after multiple migrations from one computer to another, some of my file creation dates are incorrect. I don't use JD but I do have a lot of stuff in yearly folders and some of it's clearly wrong. Like I know that I started one of my graphic novels in 2012 but some of the first few pages have dates in 2014 and 2019. Did a computer migration change the dates? Did some edit I did later on save it as a new file? I don't know. I just know the date's way off.

I agree that the choice to have any system is important.

Totally agree. Consider the simple act of copying a file. Will it retain the original date or start fresh? There is a correct answer, but maybe it depends on the operating system, or the program you're using to do the copy. But I don't care. "Ain't nobody got time for that." When I want to know the creation date or if I just want a unique name I add a the date as a suffix; 022125. It also helps that it's much easier to see at a glance.

250221 is probably a better format for your needs ;)

Allowing the filesystem to track creation time means you have to worry about how you move the data around and whether the tools you're using preserve it properly. A folder named 20250221-nyc-trip is a coarse but very durable way to store that.

20250221-nyc-trip is not a creation time, it's an identifier of the subject. they're both dates but they're different things.

I mean, if you define your identifiers to start with the creation time, then it's both.

Agree. The benefit of posts like these is that someone has documented their system and iterated on it. You can then steal ideas that work for you.

As a not very organized person, and having struggled with getting personal systems running, guides like this help quite a bit. I've only improved by taking bits that stick for me (https://www.hanselman.com/blog/one-email-rule-have-a-separat...). Anytime I tried a whole system, it failed to get going at all causing me more stress.

I will say that I have a few hierarchies I use regularly that go beyond 3 levels, and they are annoying to work with. There are times where I will copy the entire sub-directory to my desktop just to reduced how many levels I'm working from. Then once I'm done, I'll copy the files back into their little "box" and delete the desktop version.

That sort of thing really makes me miss the Miller Column Filebrowser on my NeXT Cube (and wish that Apple's implementation were more like to it --- it just doesn't "feel" right to me when I use it on my MacBook).

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