Use a work journal
fev.al
Use a work journal
1–10 of 305 posts
Re: Use a work journal
#2Sadly, the image doesn't load to me (I get ![[focus.png]] instead)
Re: Use a work journal
#3Just use post-it notes as a task stack. Push and Pop as distractions come and go. Affirm to yourself that you are a productive and loved human being and not a biological IRQ handler.
Re: Use a work journal
#4Sadly, the image doesn't load to me (I get ![[focus.png]] instead)
Woops, thanks for letting me know, should be fixed in a few minutes.
That's the one: https://fev.al/img/2024/focus.png
Re: Use a work journal
#5I've always done this. My coworkers have been frustrated with me in the past for asking them to write things down, because some of them overestimate my ability to listen to them speak for 5-10 minutes and remember every detail. It's very hard to forget what is written down.
Recently, I neglected to write down my thinking and progress for a week, and I was at a loss for where to begin the following Monday. Keeping a work journal (in my case, a linear text document with an entry for each day) is the most important productivity habit I have.
Re: Use a work journal
#6I've always done this. My coworkers have been frustrated with me in the past for asking them to write things down, because some of them overestimate my ability to listen to them speak for 5-10 minutes and remember every detail. It's very hard to forget what is written down. Recently, I neglected to write down my thinking and progress for a week, and I was at a loss for where to begin the following Monday. Keeping a w…
How do you structure the entries? Bullets, free style, mix?
Re: Use a work journal
#7Lovely post. I do something similar where I write blog posts for myself as I solve a problem. Something like a how-to guide before I actually know how to do it. Then I cite sources as I find them. When I finally solve the issue or create "the thing", I revisit the doc and either publish it internally, or keep it in my archives.
This really became a habit after reading Writing to Learn by William Zinsser. I recommend this book to everyone and their grandmother these days.
"Writing enables us to find out what we know—and what we don’t know—about whatever we’re trying to learn."
Re: Use a work journal
#8I have been doing this for years. Every morning, I create a new Markdown file with the day's date, copy the previous day's content into it, and edit it. Mine has (for now) the following sections: Morning checklist, Todo, Done, and Meeting Notes.
The morning checklist consists of things like checking email, checking Teams, skimming the team's handover queue, logging into various things, etc.
Todo is a stack of things I can/should tackle. Most important ones to the top. I limit it to 15 items, no matter what. But realistically, I typically only interact with about the top 5 99% of the time.
Done gets wiped every morning and I add things to it as I do them. Things like, "emailed Joe Schmo for 3rd time to ask for ETA", or "helped Fred troubleshoot the frobnitz." Little things that I would totally forget about but cumulatively end up taking a huge chunk of the day. I've never had a boss that expressed a concern, but I think of it as my primary defense if anyone accuses me of slacking off all day. (Maybe it's just to convince myself...)
Each meeting I go to gets its own section for the day. If the content was important enough to save into my second brain[1], I clean it up and transfer it over there at the end of the day, or the beginning of the next day at worst.
Any complex investigation or rabbit hole gets its own section as well. It's astonishingly difficult for me to actually reason about any complex system or design without writing it out and actually describing it to myself. I envy those who can just "see" it all at once in their mind's eye. If ends up being important enough to save, I will clean it up and share it with the team and/or dump it into my personal wiki.
Re: Use a work journal
#9If you get constantly interrupted, or you became a manager, this is a must.
Re: Use a work journal
#10Thanks for the great blog post, I could feel the frustration of not getting something to work, and the anxiety of feeling like I'm under performing. I've added you to my RSS reader now. :)
I've started to use index cards to write down daily tasks and I'll switch over to obsidian if I find myself asking the same question more than once. I think for me the process of writing something down slows my mind enough to let me focus on it.
I like @ZXoomerCretin's idea of keeping a running document of what I do each day. I think it would make anual review time a lot easier.