GAgalfarragem·Feb 21, 2025
My take on "systems to organise your life". It may help somebody: https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In Johnny.Decimal – A system to organise your lifeslowernews
hamster-system
Productivity2015–2025
slowernews / hamster-system
hamster-system
Ultra-simple framework to organize your life.
5Distinct people
27Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
348GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Ultra-simple framework to organize your life.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
Instead of a new tool, most people need a new system. I can't understand why GTD is not anymore in fashion (at least in HN) once it is the most efficient system I ever used.…
galfarragem used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year27 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-03-12 10:07:25 UTC to 2025-02-21 16:35:49 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 2 | 6 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
27 sourcesMy "organization scheme" (as you call it) took me years to refine and match my brain/personality. Seems to be interesting to others also:
https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In Ask HN: How do you organize your data and maintain digital hygiene?I read HN almost exclusively. Unfortunately HN is the most powerful interesting info firehose in the web. A nightmare for digital hoarders. My take to stay sane:
- If it's interesting I upvote.
- If it's really really interesting I bookmark on the browser. This still means 2 or 3 links daily.
- Once a week I copy/paste browser bookmarks to my markdown file[0]
- At least once a month I tree shake them. Time passes and some stuff are not so relevant/interesting anymore. Eventually some move to my notebook[1] or to my news aggregator[2]. All my github projects are somehow a tool to deal with digital obesity.
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
[1] https://github.com/slowernews/notebook
[2] https://github.com/slowernews/slowernews
In My bad habit of hoarding informationBeen there and tried them all. One day you realise there isn’t a perfect approach and you must settle and compromise. I settled on project based [0]. When you notice too much repetition - and it happens more rarely than you may think - it’s time to simply consider a new project and a symlink. Not pure but is simple and practical.
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system#hamster-folder-...
In Taxonomy Is HardThe system I’ve been polishing[0] along the years is similar to the one from this article. I believe that there is an ultimate solution from where is hard to deviate.
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In My productivity systemI believe you got inspired here[0].. If you decide to open source your code in the future, let me know and I'll add somehow a link to it.
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system#hamster-budget-...
In Show HN: I wrote an eBook about tracking your Net Worth with KotlinAsk HN: How do you reconcile your paper and digital notes?
I have been using a ~/notes folder with markdown files edited with vim on my computer and markor on my phone synced with syncthing. That works well. But I am also a fan of paper notes and find that they "stick" better in my memory, and I am more conservative and intentional with what I physically write. However I end up with an out of sync feeling - some information stored digitally, some in a notebook. I've been considering strategies to address this.
One strategy I thought of is to use a single markdown file like the Hamster system [1] and alphabetize the sections; then I print this file and take handwritten notes onto the print out; then when the diff is large enough, I update the markdown file, print it again, and repeat. The main disadvantage is needing to reprint the full file for what could be small changes. To address that I have
Read the rest
considered putting a page return between each letter of the alphabet, so each section starts on a new page.
Do you have any strategies to effectively synchronise paper with digital notes?
[1] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
If you like analog, you may get some tidbits from here also[0].
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In Analog: A simple productivity systemHamster-system: Ultra-simple framework to organize your life
11 points · Open discussionMy take is to organize everything by projects using a predictable structure and naming.[0]
[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In Johnny.DecimalI use sections (materialised as markdown titles so I can easily navigate through them in a text editor) for recurrent subjects (so in some way this is my tagging) and never date anything unless is relevant to do so.
I don't dive into "implementation details" but you might find something here: https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system#hamster-flow
In Zettelkasten note-taking in 10 minutes"Every document belongs to a project": https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In Ask HN: How do you organise your files and folders?Some hints: https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system
In My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt fileThought-provoking idea: you don't need a personal budget.
https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system#hamster-budget
In Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency supportI use a simple TXT file formatted as YAML that is a part of my organization system: https://github.com/galfarragem/superfolder
In Ask HN: How do you keep track of articles you want to read?Showing the 15 most recent of 27 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.