Sunday, 13 September 2026

There is no UNIVERSAL PERFECT RULE !

  Yes. Looking across the themes we've discussed, the main topics that seemed to frustrate you or pull you into repeated optimization were:

  1. File Naming Convention (FNC) 📚
    This was probably the biggest one.

    • Perfect filename format

    • UID systems

    • Whether every book needs an ID

    • Author/title/year/publisher/edition combinations

    • Filename length and characters

    • How libraries, researchers, IEEE, etc. name files

    • Trying to find the one correct naming system

    You eventually reached an important conclusion: there are thousands of valid ways to name files; choose one according to the purpose.

  2. Digital library organization

    • How to organize hundreds/thousands of books

    • Books vs papers vs projects vs notes

    • Folder structures

    • Metadata

    • Server filenames vs database IDs

    • Whether a huge library needs UIDs

  3. Phone/app organization

    • How many apps you should have

    • Where particular apps should go

    • Home-screen grouping

    • Whether there is a perfect layout

  4. Social-media organization

    • How many people to follow

    • Who/what to follow

    • Growth strategy

    • Whether following too many accounts is wrong

  5. Systems and workflows generally
    You've often asked versions of:

    • “What is the best system?”

    • “What is the perfect method?”

    • “Which one is correct?”

    • “How do real organizations do it?”

  6. Small decisions becoming big optimization problems

    This is probably the common thread, rather than any particular topic.

    A small question such as:

    “How should I name this book?”

    can become:

    “What do libraries do?” → “What does IEEE do?” → “What about millions of files?” → “Do researchers use UIDs?” → “What's the perfect UID?” → “What's the universal standard?”

    And after spending a lot of time on it, you still don't get the certainty your brain was looking for.

The pattern is more important than the topics

I don't think books, apps, filenames, or social media themselves are the real problem.

The recurring pattern seems closer to:

Decision → search for the best rule → find exceptions → search again → seek certainty → frustration.

That's why your statement today is actually useful:

NO UNIVERSAL PERFECT RULE.

You can apply it to all of these areas and stop reopening decisions that are already good enough.

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There is no UNIVERSAL PERFECT RULE !

  Yes. Looking across the themes we've discussed, the main topics that seemed to frustrate you or pull you into repeated optimization w...