We got a small app that tracks activities
Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#42tl;dr — Pivotal Tracker is the be-all and end-all of software development tracking.
As a developer, I don't hold myself accountable to any work that isn't written down in a user story prioritized by my product manager — the only person to whom I answer. Requirements don't come from meetings; they come from this backlog. I take work off the top, and when it's delivered I can easily filter into a historical view of my accomplishments (isolated from amongst my team's).
Within a single feature, I use TDD to orient myself forward: a test that's failing tells me what _technical_ requirement stands between myself and delivering the feature. If I am working on something that doesn't lend itself to testing — i.e. dev-ops — I will keep a context-stack of sticky notes that churns hourly, and is tossed at the end of the day.
Above features, Tracker's concept of Epics allows my team to measure progress on new wings of our users' journey, but I don't think at that level on a daily basis; only periodically when asked to wear a UX hat as part of a design exercise.
For the fuzzy things around the edges, I do use a half-assed bullet-journal. It mostly comprises questions like "why am I in this meeting?" or "when will this be written into a user story?"
I also use 750words.com to "take the edge off", some days. I fill it with stream-of-consciousness reflections that may later prime and inform my contributions to process-design exercises.
Tracker will appear heavy-handed for a team without a dedicated product manager who relies on developers' estimates to inform their sovereignty over backlog priorities.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#43I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.
My house was burgled 3 weeks ago. The most irritating thing they stole was a diary... Quite irreplaceable. I have no idea why they took it, I can only imagine looking for passwords.
That sucks, diaries really are irreplaceable. For work logs, I keep mine in a locked office. I'd be pretty boned if someone broke in there no matter what!
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#44Toggl.com
I time everything down to the secomd and every task has a ticket # or a helpful description.
I can tell you down to the minute of how much effort some task took or what I did at time T on day X.
It feels ironically liberating (and I used to abhor timesheets and tracking)
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#45I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.
I'll second this. I keep a fountain pen with my notebook because fountain pens make me want to write more.
The pen is the toughest choice!
I like the Uniball Vision Elite with the bold point in blue.
I've run out today and am reduced to a US Government Skilcraft pen. A decided downgrade
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#46I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.
I'm a big fan of the Bullet Journal method too ( http://bulletjournal.com ). Started about 7 months ago and use it daily. I got a black Leuchtturm 1917 for work, and a white one for personal. I used to keep daily notes in a Dropbox folder, edited and searchable with Sublime Text, but the physical notebook is much better.
The trick for me is page numbers and a table of contents
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#47Org mode with some fairly well-worn templates. My daily log is in datetree format. I have a few agenda options so at my weekly meeting I can get a quick review of what I've done during the week (or quarter if I'm writing quarterly notes).
If I go to a meeting I take notes with pen and paper and transfer them in elaborated form when I return. Good note taking is a skill, though!
I dabbled with an ultra quick template (F12 to write a single line in a mega list with a date stamp at the front of each item, no options, no slowdown). I found the discipline of taking slow notes at the end of every task or day much better than effectively tweeting my day to my future self.
One thing that I've found difficult is having task/project journals that work easily into this flow. Tags help but I found I was duplicating everything in changelogs.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#48That's why I built https://wakatime.com, which is a plugin in your text editor that automatically tracks what you worked on.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#49Org Mode stored on Dropbox. At any given moment I have two "running" files - one being a general tasklist, and one being this month's notes. On the general tasklist I maintain my own, much more detailed, copy of what's in the issue tracker we use. I rotate that file every few months, copying over unfinished tasks. I also use it to record any bug and weird thing I spot with the application, if I don't have time to inv…
Org Mode looks cool. I'm a vim guy and I hope vim-orgmode is as good. Will give it a spin! Thanks! :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?
#50I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.
I'll second this. I keep a fountain pen with my notebook because fountain pens make me want to write more.
I've been meaning to get a fountain pen myself. Never did I expect to know about pens in this thread. :) The Pigma Micron looks fabulous (and not so expensive too) as well.