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Use a work journal

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Re: Use a work journal

#11

Post by charles_f »

nbbaier wrote: post #6
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #5

I'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?

I write it as a prose. Mostly because that's the form I enjoy the most to write, and also because it's mostly about writing it more than reading it later on

Re: Use a work journal

#12

Post by malux85 »

coffee2theorems wrote: post #10

Thanks 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 m…

Heres my digital pensieve -

Daily running log of what I have done

Dynamic todo list where things move up and down freely

remarkable tablet where I watch lectures and write notes (writing things down slows my mind and focuses as you say)

Daily Weekly Fortnightly Monthly Text files for spaced repetition, if I get to one and I have forgotten something then it’s moved up, if I feel like I know something it’s moved down

Longer memories are stored by topic:

Memory (working memory) Platform Operations Zany schemes Non-AT … + many more

Each is a hierarchy, platform is some 20 categories each with 10ish sub categories

It’s actually hosed on my NAS, tailscale connects all my devices so I can edit and view anywhere

I look forward to the day I can query and edit this with thought

Re: Use a work journal

#13

Post by senkora »

I keep a stack. Whenever I am interrupted, I push a task onto the stack. When I finish a task, I pop it from the stack. Each task has an associated journal file. Sometimes I reorder the stack.

Re: Use a work journal

#14

Post by baby_souffle »

coffee2theorems wrote: post #10

Thanks 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 m…

Yes! Obsidian with daily note plugin and templates makes it really easy to build a quick list of things and automatically link to yesterday’s notes. A little extra time with templates and some custom js and you can make it a single key combo to copy the notes to paste buffer for sharing in slack standup thread.

Also, set up a praise folder and take screenshots every time somebody says something nice about the work you’re doing. You can automate documenting the context around it, too with quick add

Re: Use a work journal

#15

Post by kiba »

I do work journaling too, but they're simply part of my journaling routine which encompasses much more than just a work log.

Primarily I use work log to document problems I am having, keeping track of contexts such as what page I last read, and keeping track of my time. Timestamping is a very useful tool to fight procrastination.

In other part of my life, I use journals for personal development and productivity in general, like writing down my problems and thinking about them. I often stumbled upon changes that I could implement or try. This allows me to achieve things that I haven't achieved before, such as putting actual effort in learning electronics. Daily habits and action items are tracked, including my prediction of how an action goes and what is the actual outcome.

So yeah, journaling is a very good practice. It doesn't seem to matter much how you use them, just that you use them. It's very good at stopping your ruminating and you can actually move forward with your thoughts.

Re: Use a work journal

#16

Post by darby_nine »

senkora wrote: post #13

I keep a stack. Whenever I am interrupted, I push a task onto the stack. When I finish a task, I pop it from the stack. Each task has an associated journal file. Sometimes I reorder the stack.

How do you organize the journal? Do you grow an index from one side and tasks from the other?

Re: Use a work journal

#17

Post by barbazoo »

I just finished a project where I was in the same situation. Stuck, I ended up in the same place every night that I started at. Began writing down a plan as detailed as I could, made a plan for every day what I wanted to achieve and maintained that to the end of the project. Got me out of a slump.

Re: Use a work journal

#18

Post by packetlost »

senkora wrote: post #13

I keep a stack. Whenever I am interrupted, I push a task onto the stack. When I finish a task, I pop it from the stack. Each task has an associated journal file. Sometimes I reorder the stack.

This is pretty similar workflow to mine. I have a sideproject that implements it in a terminal that's been sitting on a shelf for awhile, maybe I should pick that one back up

Re: Use a work journal

#19

Post by tkcranny »

Wonderfully written piece. I love how it builds up that idea of finally making progress, “seeing the matrix”, and then:

> It’s Mitch, your PM. He’s asking the url for a doc he wrote

Boy that’s too real. Really reminds me of the comic from a decade ago about programmer focus [1].

But welcome to the world of Note taking, I agree it’s like a superpower once you develop the habit. Obsidian is fantastic, but even daily markdown notes are great. The whole “second brain” idea hasn’t panned out for me, but a hotkey to jump to today’s note, and another insert the current time has been a mainstay of my workflow for years now.

[1] https://imgur.com/never-interrupt-programmer-3uyRWGJ

Re: Use a work journal

#20

Post by senkora »

darby_nine wrote: post #16
senkora wrote: post #13

I keep a stack. Whenever I am interrupted, I push a task onto the stack. When I finish a task, I pop it from the stack. Each task has an associated journal file. Sometimes I reorder the stack.

How do you organize the journal? Do you grow an index from one side and tasks from the other?

I wrote myself a python cli tool that manages the stack by updating a sqlite database, and one of the commands creates a text file associated with the task (if it doesn't already exist) and opens it in Emacs. The text files are stored in a hard-coded directory and an anacron job does a git commit once a day.

I can tell what I worked on each day by querying the git commit history, and I can grep the entire directory for keywords.

It's a little janky but it works pretty well for me.

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