Trying Out That Ben Yoel Thing
So, I kept hearing this name, Ben Yoel, popping up here and there. Mostly in forums, sometimes mentioned by colleagues when talking about keeping project stuff tidy. Sounded like some kind of organizational method, maybe? Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention at first. My own system was… well, it was a system. Messy, maybe, but I knew where most things were, most of the time.
But then, I hit a wall on this one project. Files everywhere. Folders nested so deep you’d need a map. Finding anything was taking forever. Frustration was building up. That’s when I remembered ‘Ben Yoel’. Okay, fine, I thought, let’s give this famous method a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?
First step, I tried to actually find out what the ‘Ben Yoel method’ was. Turns out, it wasn’t as straightforward as I hoped. There wasn’t one single guide. It was more like piecing together bits from different conversations. Seemed like the core idea was about naming conventions and a specific folder structure. Something like:
- Naming files based on date and content very strictly.
- Having top-level folders for ‘Input’, ‘Process’, ‘Output’.
- Keeping documentation right alongside the code it described.
Seemed simple enough on paper. So, I decided to apply it to a small, ongoing side project. Just to test the waters, you know?
Man, it was tougher than it looked. Getting used to the strict naming took real effort. My fingers just wanted to type ‘draft_final_really_*’. And the folder structure felt… rigid. Sometimes a file didn’t neatly fit into ‘Input’, ‘Process’, or ‘Output’. Where did that go? I spent more time thinking about where to put a file than actually working on it.
I remember one afternoon, I was trying to save some reference images. Are they ‘Input’? Are they just ‘Assets’? I fiddled around, creating subfolders, then renaming them. Wasted a good hour just on that. It felt counterproductive.
After about two weeks of trying to stick to it religiously, I kind of… eased off. I kept some parts of it – the idea of keeping docs close to the relevant code was actually pretty smart. And being a bit more consistent with naming definitely helped. But the super strict folder structure? Nah, not for me. It just didn’t click with how my brain works during the messy middle part of a project.
So, did the Ben Yoel thing revolutionize my workflow? Not really. It wasn’t some magic bullet. But trying it out wasn’t a total waste either. It made me actually think about my organization, even if I ended up sticking mostly to my own slightly-less-chaotic system. Guess you gotta try things to see what sticks, right?
