Moleskin journal, quick list of items and mind maps of more complex topics.
Cheap, reliable and easy. I keep them available for 2 years and toss them in a box after that.
Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#12Whenever I work at a job I have a text file. Each day I write the date, and I use it as both a scratch pad and a log of bugs fixed with their IDs, features implemented, relevant meetings attended, etc.
The files tend to be pretty incoherent but very good for searching for relevant keywords and dates.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#13I do loosely keep a log. I use a sublime plugin called plain notes (or simple notes? I don't know). I used to think it's a great idea to log everything , but now I've resorted to trying to only add to the logs whenever I think I can benefit from the knowledge later. It has definitely been very useful, I now have tons of notes on useful regexes I can use to search for very specific code patterns, tons of details about…
Oh cool, I use Sublime also. I actually made a slightly customized fork of this to help out:
https://github.com/unqueued/sublime-notelink
Most people would probably want the more powerful extension[1] which also has wiki link navigation, but it also has some incompatibilities with my setup.
I use a wiki-ish repo. A Journal.md that is my primary work log, but I also make little subpages when I want to expand into something specific or reference something previous.
So, I might do [[2018-10-11_issue_cron-aws-replication-issue]]. If the issue is more complicated, I would just roll it into a more general [[issue_cron-aws-replication-issue]]. I usually don't need to do this, and I try to not let it grow to be too complicated. But having it be somewhat structured has been really helpful. The links can act as tags, and I occasionally use symlinks as redirects. My Git.md page has lots of things I've learned at this job in it.
I keep it synced with my private git repo[2], where the Markdown wiki syntax works seamlessly with the Gollum wiki[3]. This also works if you want to access your wiki hosted on a private github repo.
[1]: https://github.com/SublimeText-Markdown/MarkdownEditing
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#14I started using Notational Velocity (http://notational.net) years ago and still use it pretty effectively. I try to label things and keep them searchable. It's the repository for anything I might need to remember.
To be honest, I don't really review them but I do occasionally have to search back through them to answer questions like, "what was that feature I promised on that phone call?"
1 out of 10 notes ends up being useful, the others are pretty much trash.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#15I keep logs using Windows Notepad. I keep track of the time, what I’m working on and, at the end of the day, a note that says “Next:..” so I’ll be able to pick right up where I left off.
I have a program to add up the hours for me.
Once I became a consultant, I started keeping a log for each client.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#16I blog. It's not perfect (doesn't contain everything that I learned) but it had helped "future me" out periodically.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#17I really like the taskwarrior for linux. Syntax like:
task add xxx
task list
Makes it super easy to do from terminal
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#18I usually keep a simple text file with names like 'notes.txt' or 'notes-project_reboot.txt', especially for projects that I work on intermittently. Many times these notes files disappear into the past, as these projects get abandoned.
But when I want to revisit a project that I'm going to prioritize, these notes projects are really helpful. They let me quickly get back into the mindset I had when I was last working on the project. They're usually a mix of technical notes, a really simplified collection of issues, and notes about where I might go with the project. When I do revive an old project, one of my first steps is usually to start up a new notes file and copy over only the most useful notes from the old file.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#19For one project I keep notes in a git repository so I can grep them for stuff later. At the beginning of every month I create a 2018-11.md or whatever and keep the notes going there all month.
For another project I keep notes in a wiki. It's not as easy to search as git, but I still refer to it for things I did months or years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep work logs, and if so, how do you use them?
#20I keep several logs (I'm a product manager):
1. a "Weekly Notes" file where I track meetings or other notes that come up 2. a separate 1 on 1 file for each recurring 1 on 1 meeting that I have 3. a "Customer Meetings" file for tracking notes from customer meetings 4. a "[customer name]" file for notes from meetings with important/key customers 5. a Pomodoro Google Sheet file that I use to log my daily tasks and how much time I spend on them- each task is categorized and feeds into a "Summary" sheet that tells me how much time I'm spending on specific categories of activities month to month.
My usual workflow is to track meeting notes in my "Weekly Notes" file and review all notes in that file at the end of each week. I either delete information that's not valuable, move "valuable" information to specific files from #2-4, or create tasks in my to do list (which then feeds my Pomodoro sheet), so at the end of each week the "Weekly Notes" file is completely empty.