Or, How to Organize the Organizers.
I’ve tried to get organized. I’ve tried and tried to get organized. From notebooks, notepads, and post-it notes, to calendars, decks of 3×5 cards, and Franklin planners, I’ve tried a long succession of systems of paperwork I hoped would bring documented order to the chaos of life. As a result I have several bankers boxes bulging with years of notes, sketches, reminders, not to mention great ideas of the Next Big Thing, winning business plans, and sensible ways get everything back on track.
Now I need a way to access all those idea and records. I need a way to find all the related ideas, group them together, edit, organize and prioritize them, then put them somewhere I can refer back to again. I need to find all my records of passwords, account numbers, appointments, and things-to-do and similarly sort them. I was mulling over the problem recently and one of those weird associations occurred to me: what about a SWBS for a homestead?
A SWBS, or Ship Work Breakdown Structure, is a set of numerical codes that categorizes all the components of a ship into 3-digit numbers. These numbers are used in document numbers as a concise way of summarizing the purpose of a drawing or document. For internal purposes shipyards usually refer to their ships by the project’s number. Names are for the customer and crew. For example, a shipyard building a ship they call Project 2232 might have a drawing called 2232-185-001A. Meaning, it is drawing #1 of Project 2232’s auxiliary systems foundations, and it has been revised once (rev A). The drawing’s title will show the purpose of the drawing and help one find a specific drawing within a category. For instance, to find the auxiliary seawater pump foundation drawings for Project 2232, you wouldn’t have to go drawing-by-drawing through the project to find it, you’d just have to go to the -180 drawing folder. If there’s more than one -185 drawing, the title should bring you to the right one. E.g.
- 2232-181-001 STBD MAIN ENGINE FDN
- 2232-181-002 PORT MAIN ENGNE FDN
- 2232-183-001 P&S TURBINE GENERATOR FDN
- 2232-185-001 AUX SW PUMP FDN
- 2232-185-002 POTABLE WTR PUMP FDN
- 2232-186-001 FLUX CAPACITOR FDN
I realized instantly that any numbering system that can categorize the many parts and systems of a ship, and be useful to all the people, of many different personalities and roles aboard the ship, could be adapted to organize the elements of a homestead, a creative person, a small business owner, or any combination thereof – and maybe even if they’ve been chronically disorganized for a long time.
Most of my career I’ve worked under a SWBS developed and published by Newport News Ship Building Company and The University of Michigan. I only worked at NNSB for a few months, years ago, but this particular SWBS is widely used by other shipyards and engineering firms. Its overall structure is:
- 000 General Guidance and Administration
- 100 Hull Structure, General
- 200 Propulsion Plant, General
- 300 Electric Plant, General
- 400 Command and Surveillance, General
- 500 Auxiliary Systems, General
- 600 Outfit and Furnishings, General
- 700 Armament, General
- 800 Integration/Engineering (Shipbuilder Response)
- 900 Ship Assembly and Support Services
Within those general categories are almost a thousand specific categories, some useful as-is to a household or homestead:
- 320 Power Distribution Systems
- 330 Lighting System
- 510 Climate Control
- 528 Plumbing Drainage
- 533 Potable Water
- 555 Fire Extinguishing Systems
- 605 Rodent and Vermin Proofing
- 631 Painting
- 655 Laundry Spaces
There are a few categories that might be useful to some homesteads, even though much of the rest of the group is not useful to any of us, like:
- 312 Emergency Generators
- 432 Telephone Systems
- 710 Guns and Ammunition
- 713 Ammunition Stowage
- 831 Construction Drawings
- 851 Maintenance
There are some categories, even whole groups, that are unsuitable for a homestead since they are systems unique to naval warships, such as:
- 011 Air Weapons vs. Air Targets
- 097 Inclining Experiment and Trim Dive
- 100 Hull Structure, General
- 200 Propulsion Plant, General
- 400 Command and Surveillance, General
- 700 Armament, General
- 800 Integration/Engineering (Shipbuilder Response)
- 900 Ship Assembly and Support Services
But that’s good, because it leaves plenty of room for reconfiguration: there’s almost 600 specific categories just in those groups, if we want them. Plus dozens of categories, within the groups we might keep, that can be repurposed. We can use this structure of naming and numbering components, systems, and processes and then use it as an adaptable, scalable, and customized system to keep track of our stuff and what we’re trying to do with it. Note: if your homestead needs a filing system for documents related to nuclear power plants, depth charges, missiles, aviation fuel, underwater fire control, or drydocking, I hope you already have one in place. If not, I can be available for consulting.
Now I’m working on adapting the system for my use. For the top level groups I’m considering:
- 000 General Guidance and Administration
- 100 Built Structure, General
- 200 Transportation, General
- 300 Electrical Systems, General
- 400 Agriculture and Horticulture, General
- 500 Piping and Mechanical Systems, General
- 600 Outfit and Furnishings, General
- 700 Security and Safety, General
- 800 Home-based Business Activites
- 900 Personal Projects
Group 000 could include insurance policies, bank & investment accounts, pre-planned evacuation routes for hurricanes & similar, building permit paperwork &tc. Group 100 could include buildings on the land, or “improvements” as the city tax assessor calls them. Something like:
- 100 Built Structure, General
- 110 Building Foundations
- 120 Building Floors
- 121 Wooden Joist Floors
- 122 Concrete Slab Floors
and so on, as specific and fine-grained, or as general as needed.
This numbering system, (the HWBS?), can be used to organize pages in a three-ring binder, in an accordion file, on a set of bookshelves or really, anywhere documents are kept. There’s no expensive leather notebook and yearly refill pages to buy. It can be applied retroactively to existing documents of any kind. Plus, if it works as I imagine, it will fix the recurring problem of receiving new information but having no established place to put it. For instance, every time I have to make up a new password for yet another online service, I scrawl it on the notepad that happens to be on my desk at the time. Because, you know, it’s the notepad where that stuff goes right now. And surely I’ll be able to find that page of the notepad a year from now, after I’ve rearranged the desk four times, and the room around it twice, in the meantime . . . .
As I imagine it, if there’s a big binder on the bookshelf marked Group 000, and I know that passwords are kept on pages under 013 Passwords, I can make a point to copy the new passwords into the notebook once I’ve finished whatever event required the new password. Yeah, I know I could have a notebook specifically for passwords, but that would be just one more book in a house awash in books, and it wouldn’t be part of this overarching system of organization I’m trying to develop,
Next I’ll flesh out the groups with specific category titles and find ways of using this numbering system to organize papers and projects around the homestead.
