Typically, whatever I'm doing I have a history of doing before, and can anticipate whether I'll need <10, <100, etc. folders, and name accordingly.
I also name my month folders "01 - January" and my date folders YYYY.MM.DD so they sort properly. I really hate when people use MM.DD.YY in folder names--or even worse M.D.YY. Fuck those people.
Depends on the OS! I know on Windows 10, it will not sort it lexicographically but rather treat it as an integer like you intended. Pretty sure on all my Linux installs, whether KDE or XFCE, they sort as you say though.
I think once you get burned once you build these things into your habits. Keep them even when the whole process has been revamped. Maybe that's just me.
(Basically, when you get to 10, instead of using 10, add a 1 after 9 to make it 91, then continue with 92. Instead of 100, make 99 to 991, then continue with 992, etc...
Now that I think of it my folder structure is so fucked
Here's the picture: I have a 3tb SSD, and in that I have five folders, let's focus on the folder named ' archive'.
I was so lazy that instead of filtering through my old shit so that archive is neat and tidy, I just copy pasted it in.
For your information, the shit I copy pasted into archive has the same folder names as one folder upwards, so there is basically two exact schemas just a folder down
And in the archive folder, there is another archive folder. It's filled with garbage.
Oh, besides my SSD, the exact same folder has its copy in my own home folder and they're both pinned, but they don't mirror so I sometimes have to check the archive, sometimes the home, sometimes the one that stores the archive
Me being the way I am, if we worked together in shared folders, I would die.
My current colleagues already somewhat annoy me by not properly version numbering so you have no clue what file in a unsorted folder is the latest, or naming a folder with a date like: "14 Feb 24" like some hecking heathens.
YYYY.MM.DD (or other delimiters) or gtfo.
This concludes my 2 cents only partially related to yours haha