Since I began my PhD I started writing a personal journal about my research. I write down all things in my mind, things I tried out, things that did not work,

Since I began my PhD I started writing a personal journal about my research. I write down all things in my mind, things I tried out, things that did not work, etc. Every time I get new results or evaluate something, I also try to include a table or graph with intermediate results. The journal helps me to see my progress over time. I can grep through it and see if I already tried something. I can go back and see how my results get better over time or whether I hit a dead end somewhere. I also write a small summary directly after meetings and talks and note feedback from supervisors. I use org-mode (emacs) for this and can recommend it. All my entries are sorted by year and week number, so I try to write a summary at least once a week. As I use Emacs for all my programming related tasks, the org-mode file is open all day anyhow, so I usually add things more often than that.