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Use a work journal

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Re: Use a work journal

#51

Post by darby_nine »

senkora wrote: post #20
darby_nine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Ahh, I was expecting "journal" to refer to a physical book for some reason!

This makes a lot of sense. Why not simply store the task with the sqlite database? I'm assuming ease of editing + the ability to manage the stack separately from the log of text entries, which presumably need no maintenance nor will ever be deleted?

Re: Use a work journal

#52

Post by brightball »

simpaticoder wrote: post #30

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going o…

I’ve been seriously considering using Logseq for this reason.

When I first started with Obsidian I used it that way, but the more I put in it the more I started organizing everything. It became less of a journal and more of a repository for long form stuff.

I’m thinking about using both just so I have a dedicated tool just for the journaling side of things.

Re: Use a work journal

#53

Post by pizzathyme »

nlawalker wrote: post #21

What finally got this to stick for me was abandoning all notion of structure and organization (and formal concepts like “logging” and “journaling”) and optimizing fully for capture over retrieval, then relying on search tools and proximity for the latter. I have the OneNote icon in the notification area configured to create a new quick note and use it liberally. Occasionally I look through all the pages, especially t…

I’ve found a lot of success going one step further giving up on retrieval all together. I use either a new text file every time (which I never open again) or a physical notebook page (which I never refer back to). I get so much value from the act of writing itself.

Re: Use a work journal

#54

Post by galaxyLogic »

simpaticoder wrote: post #30

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going o…

I write a lot of notes in fact I write more than I read. It helps. However I have some issues:

1. How much commentary should I write? I try to write not too many notes because I write code, and some say code should be self-documenting. So it's the same old question of how many comments should there be along the code.

2. How do I retrieve a note I've written earlier? I can use tags and search for them but it is not easy to come up with a perfect tag which I would remember later.

3. I have so many notes and by now many of them are out-of-date. I don't want to spend time updating my notes. But if I don't they can become misleading.

There needs to be a balance between "Just do it" and "Write about it". I'm not sure I have the correct balance between those two.

I can see an alternate approach which would be a FORUM where co-workers discuss what they are doing or plan to, or have done . But there too the retrieval might be a problem. However the FORUM-tool would automatically keep track of when something was written and by whom. NOTE: You might benefit from other people's notes just as you can from your own.

Re: Use a work journal

#55

Post by dghlsakjg »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #54
simpaticoder wrote: post #30

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going o…

I write a lot of notes in fact I write more than I read. It helps. However I have some issues: 1. How much commentary should I write? I try to write not too many notes because I write code, and some say code should be self-documenting. So it's the same old question of how many comments should there be along the code. 2. How do I retrieve a note I've written earlier? I can use tags and search for them but it is not ea…

Check out obsidian.

It is just folders and markdown so it is ultra portable, but the obsidian editor has tons of useful features like a graph view, autolinking, and a plugin in for anything you can think of.

There are tons of YouTube videos and articles describing different organizing systems and ways to use it.

Re: Use a work journal

#56

Post by m3kw9 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #30

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going o…

Is the process of writing not for reading it but to solidfy memory? Of course the bonus is you could read it, but you really won’t

Re: Use a work journal

#57

Post by senkora »

darby_nine wrote: post #51
senkora wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Ahh, I was expecting "journal" to refer to a physical book for some reason! This makes a lot of sense. Why not simply store the task with the sqlite database? I'm assuming ease of editing + the ability to manage the stack separately from the log of text entries, which presumably need no maintenance nor will ever be deleted?

Pretty much what you said, yeah. I thought that a git repo of text files was easier to work with then storing them as blobs inside sqlite.

I do insert completed tasks into a "completed task" append-only table when I pop them off the stack, so I do have a record of completed tasks in sqlite. (I find that useful for remembering what I did recently for standups and 1:1's)

Re: Use a work journal

#58

Post by m3kw9 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #54
simpaticoder wrote: post #30

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going o…

I write a lot of notes in fact I write more than I read. It helps. However I have some issues: 1. How much commentary should I write? I try to write not too many notes because I write code, and some say code should be self-documenting. So it's the same old question of how many comments should there be along the code. 2. How do I retrieve a note I've written earlier? I can use tags and search for them but it is not ea…

The problem with writing too much is that it becomes a chore to read, there could be a lot of fluf and a few gems, but you couldn’t tell anyways.

Re: Use a work journal

#59

Post by bgoated01 »

I'm currently working on a PhD dissertation part time, and this concept has been very helpful since I'm not working full days and therefore have more context switching. I end up drawing a lot of graphs and figures to think things through, so a big notebook of graph paper ends up working the best for me. Every couple of days or so I write out a list of the next few tasks as I currently see them, then think on paper to figure out how to implement the code for each task.

Funny thing is, writing it down helps it stick in my brain, so I need the write up less than I would if I didn't write it. That's got to be some kind of contrapositive of Murphy's law or something.

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