6 ms·

The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full dia

The referenced idea of a 'human log' is great[0]. I started doing something similar 4 years ago and it eventually evolved from per-project notes into a full diary. Being able to search for 'August 24 2016' and know exactly what I did that day is quite powerful. I encourage anyone to take 10 minutes(or 30...) at the end of the day to write up what they've done. Just a text file with minimal formatting has scaled to 2.6MB of hand-typed text. Though, after a bit, I've tended to shard out specific long-running topics into their own files. [0] https://neilkakkar.com/the-human-log.html https://neilkakkar.com/the-human-log.html

neilkakkar 7y ago
Indeed! Thanks Everlag! I think it's been the top productivity hack in my life. Not only did it help me keep my thoughts in check, but it became a solid base for me to bundle other habits on top. If I keep a daily log of stuff (one I look forward to because it's super useful - not just a calendar) , all I have to do is add a new column for a new habit I'm tracking, and everyday I'm forced to put in a Yes or a No, which then snowballs into the "Don't break the chain!".
acemarke 7y ago
Yeah, I've been doing this since the start of 2013. Last thing I do each day along with filling out my time card. I usually recap what I worked on, conversations I had, other project / teammate updates, where I left off, stuff I learned or fixed, and where I need to pick up the next day. I used RedNotebook for the first few years, then switched to Boostnote because of its Markdown support and snippet syntax highlighting. One note per day, organized into folders by month. It also is hugely valuable when performance review season rolls around. I can go through the whole year in a few minutes and remind myself of all the tasks I worked on, then summarize those in the "what I did" section.
mtlynch 7y ago
I do this on a weekly basis. I used to just do it in a Google Doc, but earlier this year, I wrote an app so I could share my log entries publicly. I've been publishing my weeks since March: https://whatgotdone.com/michael https://whatgotdone.com/michael I tried for a few months to make a business out of it, but there wasn't much interest, so I'm planning to open source the code in the next couple weeks. A bit more about my motivation in creating this: https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/ https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/
- neilkakkar 7y ago
  This is awesome (and lots of projects - I love it!)
- yitchelle 7y ago
  This is really good. It reminds me of a bullet journal. Well done!
jrochkind1 7y ago
Exactly what a traditional scientist's notebook is.
satysin 7y ago
Indeed I have been doing this for all my work for over ten years now and it is one of my favourite things. I use Day One as I also use it for my personal journal. Plain text is great but I do like being able to add rich content (screenshots for example). As you say being able to look back and know exactly what you were doing on a particular day is a powerful thing. I've found that over time I have become a lot better at succinctly explaining the problems I faced and how I made progress with them. It is invaluable, even just over the weekend, in helping me 'reload' my brain when I return to work. It also helped me in communicating more technical subjects to others less technical. It's a brilliant way to unwind and finish the day. I usually only have to spend 5 minutes on it so it isn't like it is a huge commitment. I highly recommend everyone at least give it a go for a month and see if it works for you.
ThrowawayP 7y ago
And what does one do when one is struggling with burnout/depression/insomnia and the only legitimate thing to write down is "Not a whole lot really." for days in a row? (A problem a um, ... friend has, of course.) Risky habit to have under those circumstances.
- taftster 7y ago
  I think that's still a valuable log entry. You should be able to look back at your log and see the periods of inactivity, possibly being able to identify or correlate the time associated with other life events. Maybe you can work on finding ways to identify and exit those periods sooner. I believe everyone has times of marginal productivity in their lives, maybe some more than others. But if you can average out ahead of the curve, what does it matter? Showing the fact that you've had a slow week but finished the month on a high note seems like a great capability. And if an employer doesn't recognize this and can't measure your net output, then hopefully another employer can.
- Everlag 7y ago
  I've been there, I've got a bunch of entries that summarize to 'Bleh day'. For me, though it may differ for others, those entries are useful. They let me notice that something is off and help me figure out if there's a pattern. I completely agree with taftster in a sibling comment.
- Haydos585x2 7y ago
  When I'm in that sort of space I just write down really trivial things in my "Today List". I've been sick for a few weeks so my tasks have been: "have a shower", "make a coffee", "take a nap". I don't know if it would help with more severe cases but it at least lets me feel like I'm moving along. You probably completed a few distinct tasks you could write down.
- tiglionabbit 7y ago
  Then the journal could help you notice the problem and take action sooner. I've had a lot of stress at work. Here's how I dealt with it: I was once working for a boss who was really infuriating to deal with. To prevent myself from exploding at him, I would take a break, step outside in the beautiful sunlight, put in my earbuds, turn on some good music, and run. I channeled my frustration into exercise. I'd especially make a habit of doing this just before I ate lunch, which would stimulate muscle growth and make me happier and healthier. Somehow that stressful job got me into great shape. I was once working at a place where all the policies were dysfunctional and things were constantly on fire. I dealt with this by pulling out my phone and using the Headspace app to think about nothing for a moment and calm myself down. When I got back to the work, I'd put on some "focus" music (music for programming, studying, etc) that would help me maintain my calm mood when implementing the fixes. I learned to distance myself from the problem and get people to talk to each other to work it out instead of having proxy arguments on other peoples' behalf. I've had some pretty bad sleep problems as well. I got into the habit of playing videogames late at night, which really destroyed my sleep. It's really hard to sleep right after staring at bright screens and experiencing intense action. Now I have F.Lux or Night Shift enabled on all my machines and I avoid playing console games at night without wearing yellow safety glasses. Also, I've started adding concentrated lake water to my drinking water since a magnesium deficiency can make it difficult to sleep. For depression, perhaps learn about Taoism? If you really can't cope with the job, quit. It'll be even more stressful to try to find a new job while you're already working one. You can search for a new job using TripleByte, which saves a lot of time since you just have to do one coding test instead of 20. Hope this helps. Good luck.
nevster 7y ago
I kept a paper journal for work for years. I finally decided to go digital for search-ability and investigated all sorts of things like Day One, etc. Ended up just adding a new "Work Journal" calendar to my google calendar.
mikekchar 7y ago
I have an admittedly crazy thing I do occasionally. I do 5 minute pomodoros. So it's 5 minutes of writing code followed by 1 minute of reflection. In that one minute, I'll write down what I did in the last 5 minutes (it takes about 10 seconds to write since it isn't much ;-). I'll also add a few TODOs that I'm hoping to do, or break down ones I've already got. Now, 5 minutes seems an impossibly small amount of time, and admittedly this is a difficult technique. It's also very tiring (I can't do it day after day), but once you get good at it, it's surprising what you can get done in 5 minutes. You don't necessarily need to have written code -- just made some progress towards understanding something, etc. Later, I'll go over my notes. I've got everything annotated every 5 minutes which means that it's ripe for thinking about how I can improve. Did I make a wrong turn somewhere that wasted me time? Was there a way I could have detected that? Did I decide not to do something test first when it would have been better to do so? Etc, etc. I should point out that while I have a timer, I only use it as a suggestion -- I don't have any notifications for instance. It's just that if I glance down and notice my timer has gone (or is close), then I wrap up what I'm doing to get to the reflection stage. Similarly, if I'm writing TODOs and it's being productive, I don't mind doing it for 5 minutes or so. Finally, if I run into something really puzzling, then I just turn off the timer. Some problems need thinking time (though I have found that having only a few minutes to make progress often forces me to try something in order to get more information and that will crack the nut -- indeed, far more often than I would have ever suspected). It's the only tool I've found that really helps me improve my technique. The other pretty cool thing about it is that I've found that this log helps me get in and out of the zone extremely quickly. Even if I've put it down overnight, I'm right back into it within a minute or so. I am measurably much more productive with this method (like 2 or 3 times more productive), which surprised me initially (I thought I would be much less productive). The real downside is that it's draining. I can't keep it up for more than a couple of days at a time. Anyway, very dissimilar to what you were talking about, but I highly recommend it for those interested understanding what they are doing and how to improve.
- newshorts 7y ago
  This is really interesting. I’m going to try it.
- 7y ago
aizatto 7y ago
I created something for myself to use https://www.logbook.my https://www.logbook.my I can both back date and future date entries. I keep a tag called "Daily Entries" with a timestamp on the day of what I use, I can automatically add a timestamp with the shortcut "CTRL + T" Future dating allows me to plan ahead as well. I write an entry about a future event (ie a meeting) and prefill some information. Then when the meeting happens, I just open up the entry and start entering. I've been using Logbook since 1st May, and personally now have 1139 entries, and 576 tags. I've been recording: - Recipes - Meeting notes - Shower Thoughts - Career timeline - Car maintenance - "Best Practices" on a variety of subjects - Many more I also use timestamps a lot, and have a preference for how they are formatted so I created https://timestamps.aizatto.com https://timestamps.aizatto.com I hope some of these may help people here
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
I started paper logging when I got my first programming job. At first it was just to write down things I needed to know; IP addresses/host names, bugs I worked on, etc. Eventually, I started logging more information about my thought process for why I designed something a certain way or how I tracked down a bug. These come in handy months later when the bug comes back and I can refer to my notes and talk to the team about it, or when I need to design something similar and need to give an estimate. Are there better places to put this? Sure, I guess, but this is mine[0] and I can write down what I want. [0] Oh, in case anyone is curious. My logs stay with the company when I leave. I don't take any IP with me.
bspammer 7y ago
I've been doing this for the last few months, along with taking a picture every day and attaching it to the text. I've found it has noticeably improved my short-term memory of events, which has always been a weak point of mine. I imagine it will also be a nice time-capsule to look at in 40 years. I'd really encourage anyone to give it a try.

neilkakkar 7y ago

Indeed! Thanks Everlag! I think it's been the top productivity hack in my life. Not only did it help me keep my thoughts in check, but it became a solid base for me to bundle other habits on top. If I keep a daily log of stuff (one I look forward to because it's super useful - not just a calendar) , all I have to do is add a new column for a new habit I'm tracking, and everyday I'm forced to put in a Yes or a No, which then snowballs into the "Don't break the chain!".

acemarke 7y ago

Yeah, I've been doing this since the start of 2013. Last thing I do each day along with filling out my time card. I usually recap what I worked on, conversations I had, other project / teammate updates, where I left off, stuff I learned or fixed, and where I need to pick up the next day. I used RedNotebook for the first few years, then switched to Boostnote because of its Markdown support and snippet syntax highlighting. One note per day, organized into folders by month. It also is hugely valuable when performance review season rolls around. I can go through the whole year in a few minutes and remind myself of all the tasks I worked on, then summarize those in the "what I did" section.

mtlynch 7y ago

I do this on a weekly basis. I used to just do it in a Google Doc, but earlier this year, I wrote an app so I could share my log entries publicly. I've been publishing my weeks since March: https://whatgotdone.com/michael https://whatgotdone.com/michael I tried for a few months to make a business out of it, but there wasn't much interest, so I'm planning to open source the code in the next couple weeks. A bit more about my motivation in creating this: https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/ https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/

neilkakkar 7y ago
This is awesome (and lots of projects - I love it!)
yitchelle 7y ago
This is really good. It reminds me of a bullet journal. Well done!

jrochkind1 7y ago

Exactly what a traditional scientist's notebook is.

satysin 7y ago

Indeed I have been doing this for all my work for over ten years now and it is one of my favourite things. I use Day One as I also use it for my personal journal. Plain text is great but I do like being able to add rich content (screenshots for example). As you say being able to look back and know exactly what you were doing on a particular day is a powerful thing. I've found that over time I have become a lot better at succinctly explaining the problems I faced and how I made progress with them. It is invaluable, even just over the weekend, in helping me 'reload' my brain when I return to work. It also helped me in communicating more technical subjects to others less technical. It's a brilliant way to unwind and finish the day. I usually only have to spend 5 minutes on it so it isn't like it is a huge commitment. I highly recommend everyone at least give it a go for a month and see if it works for you.

ThrowawayP 7y ago

And what does one do when one is struggling with burnout/depression/insomnia and the only legitimate thing to write down is "Not a whole lot really." for days in a row? (A problem a um, ... friend has, of course.) Risky habit to have under those circumstances.

taftster 7y ago
I think that's still a valuable log entry. You should be able to look back at your log and see the periods of inactivity, possibly being able to identify or correlate the time associated with other life events. Maybe you can work on finding ways to identify and exit those periods sooner. I believe everyone has times of marginal productivity in their lives, maybe some more than others. But if you can average out ahead of the curve, what does it matter? Showing the fact that you've had a slow week but finished the month on a high note seems like a great capability. And if an employer doesn't recognize this and can't measure your net output, then hopefully another employer can.
Everlag 7y ago
I've been there, I've got a bunch of entries that summarize to 'Bleh day'. For me, though it may differ for others, those entries are useful. They let me notice that something is off and help me figure out if there's a pattern. I completely agree with taftster in a sibling comment.
Haydos585x2 7y ago
When I'm in that sort of space I just write down really trivial things in my "Today List". I've been sick for a few weeks so my tasks have been: "have a shower", "make a coffee", "take a nap". I don't know if it would help with more severe cases but it at least lets me feel like I'm moving along. You probably completed a few distinct tasks you could write down.
tiglionabbit 7y ago
Then the journal could help you notice the problem and take action sooner. I've had a lot of stress at work. Here's how I dealt with it: I was once working for a boss who was really infuriating to deal with. To prevent myself from exploding at him, I would take a break, step outside in the beautiful sunlight, put in my earbuds, turn on some good music, and run. I channeled my frustration into exercise. I'd especially make a habit of doing this just before I ate lunch, which would stimulate muscle growth and make me happier and healthier. Somehow that stressful job got me into great shape. I was once working at a place where all the policies were dysfunctional and things were constantly on fire. I dealt with this by pulling out my phone and using the Headspace app to think about nothing for a moment and calm myself down. When I got back to the work, I'd put on some "focus" music (music for programming, studying, etc) that would help me maintain my calm mood when implementing the fixes. I learned to distance myself from the problem and get people to talk to each other to work it out instead of having proxy arguments on other peoples' behalf. I've had some pretty bad sleep problems as well. I got into the habit of playing videogames late at night, which really destroyed my sleep. It's really hard to sleep right after staring at bright screens and experiencing intense action. Now I have F.Lux or Night Shift enabled on all my machines and I avoid playing console games at night without wearing yellow safety glasses. Also, I've started adding concentrated lake water to my drinking water since a magnesium deficiency can make it difficult to sleep. For depression, perhaps learn about Taoism? If you really can't cope with the job, quit. It'll be even more stressful to try to find a new job while you're already working one. You can search for a new job using TripleByte, which saves a lot of time since you just have to do one coding test instead of 20. Hope this helps. Good luck.

nevster 7y ago

I kept a paper journal for work for years. I finally decided to go digital for search-ability and investigated all sorts of things like Day One, etc. Ended up just adding a new "Work Journal" calendar to my google calendar.

mikekchar 7y ago

I have an admittedly crazy thing I do occasionally. I do 5 minute pomodoros. So it's 5 minutes of writing code followed by 1 minute of reflection. In that one minute, I'll write down what I did in the last 5 minutes (it takes about 10 seconds to write since it isn't much ;-). I'll also add a few TODOs that I'm hoping to do, or break down ones I've already got. Now, 5 minutes seems an impossibly small amount of time, and admittedly this is a difficult technique. It's also very tiring (I can't do it day after day), but once you get good at it, it's surprising what you can get done in 5 minutes. You don't necessarily need to have written code -- just made some progress towards understanding something, etc. Later, I'll go over my notes. I've got everything annotated every 5 minutes which means that it's ripe for thinking about how I can improve. Did I make a wrong turn somewhere that wasted me time? Was there a way I could have detected that? Did I decide not to do something test first when it would have been better to do so? Etc, etc. I should point out that while I have a timer, I only use it as a suggestion -- I don't have any notifications for instance. It's just that if I glance down and notice my timer has gone (or is close), then I wrap up what I'm doing to get to the reflection stage. Similarly, if I'm writing TODOs and it's being productive, I don't mind doing it for 5 minutes or so. Finally, if I run into something really puzzling, then I just turn off the timer. Some problems need thinking time (though I have found that having only a few minutes to make progress often forces me to try something in order to get more information and that will crack the nut -- indeed, far more often than I would have ever suspected). It's the only tool I've found that really helps me improve my technique. The other pretty cool thing about it is that I've found that this log helps me get in and out of the zone extremely quickly. Even if I've put it down overnight, I'm right back into it within a minute or so. I am measurably much more productive with this method (like 2 or 3 times more productive), which surprised me initially (I thought I would be much less productive). The real downside is that it's draining. I can't keep it up for more than a couple of days at a time. Anyway, very dissimilar to what you were talking about, but I highly recommend it for those interested understanding what they are doing and how to improve.

newshorts 7y ago
This is really interesting. I’m going to try it.
7y ago

aizatto 7y ago

I created something for myself to use https://www.logbook.my https://www.logbook.my I can both back date and future date entries. I keep a tag called "Daily Entries" with a timestamp on the day of what I use, I can automatically add a timestamp with the shortcut "CTRL + T" Future dating allows me to plan ahead as well. I write an entry about a future event (ie a meeting) and prefill some information. Then when the meeting happens, I just open up the entry and start entering. I've been using Logbook since 1st May, and personally now have 1139 entries, and 576 tags. I've been recording: - Recipes - Meeting notes - Shower Thoughts - Career timeline - Car maintenance - "Best Practices" on a variety of subjects - Many more I also use timestamps a lot, and have a preference for how they are formatted so I created https://timestamps.aizatto.com https://timestamps.aizatto.com I hope some of these may help people here

JustSomeNobody 7y ago

I started paper logging when I got my first programming job. At first it was just to write down things I needed to know; IP addresses/host names, bugs I worked on, etc. Eventually, I started logging more information about my thought process for why I designed something a certain way or how I tracked down a bug. These come in handy months later when the bug comes back and I can refer to my notes and talk to the team about it, or when I need to design something similar and need to give an estimate. Are there better places to put this? Sure, I guess, but this is mine[0] and I can write down what I want. [0] Oh, in case anyone is curious. My logs stay with the company when I leave. I don't take any IP with me.

bspammer 7y ago

I've been doing this for the last few months, along with taking a picture every day and attaching it to the text. I've found it has noticeably improved my short-term memory of events, which has always been a weak point of mine. I imagine it will also be a nice time-capsule to look at in 40 years. I'd really encourage anyone to give it a try.