People and organisations

Some things are not better sorted by number.

For some things, the alphabet is the best way. 'People and organisations' fit in to this category.Let's say I want to store information related to friends. I keep a list of books we've loaned each other. I save a friend's passport details when we go on a trip together. I write a list of gifts I want to buy them.

So we have a category 12 People. Would this make sense?

10-19 Life admin
   12 People
      12.01 Susan Schuzensutz
      12.02 Barry Barfelschwacker
      12.03 Fred Flopagolopolous
      ...
      12.63 Joe Lunchbox

Quickly, find Kate Krapolodou in the list. Hmm. Not optimal.

Instead, organise these people alphabetically.

You can still give them a number: just append it to their name. We still just start at .01 and go up by sequence:

10-19 Life admin
   12 People
      Barfelschwacker, Barry [12.02]
      Flopagolopolous, Fred [12.03]
      Lunchbox, Joe [12.63]
      Schuzensutz, Susan [12.01]

And now when Krapolodou, Kate is somewhere in the middle of that list, she's easy to find.

You might never use these numbers to refer to your friends. (And if you do, perhaps don't tell them.)

But they're there if you ever need them.The same principle applies to organisations. Your gas company, the electricity company: if your system organises them in a category together, you may find this sort-by-alphabet technique to be more natural.