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Use a work journal

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Re: Use a work journal

#81

Post by codazoda »

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.

I recently started doing this with my todo list. I wrote a few bash functions and aliases:

todo: Open my list in an editor

todo [thing]: Add a thing to the bottom of my list.

next: Show me only my next most important task.

mark: Mark my current task done.

There are a few more, but you get the idea.

Re: Use a work journal

#82

Post by nicbou »

I did this at my last job and it was very helpful.

I used an actual notebook. I used a new page every day. I'd write down everything I worked on, mostly for stand-ups and performance reviews, and the to-do list but only for items I intended to complete that day. Every morning, I manually copied the previous day's to-do items to the new page. It reminded me of what I was working on and made me aware of the issues I kept delaying.

Re: Use a work journal

#83

Post by clara_heredia »

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…

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Re: Use a work journal

#84

Post by clara_heredia »

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…

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Re: Use a work journal

#85

Post by clara_heredia »

wenc wrote: post #67
galaxyLogic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It really depends on your work. If you're doing mundane work, keeping notes is just busywork and doesn't really have a payoff. But if you're constantly trying to solve novel problems, and have episodic ideas that are half-baked, writing notes -- without trying to organize them first -- can be really powerful. For me, I just write them in Logseq and tag them with a few hashtags like #topic1 #topic2 #topic3. It doesn't…

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Re: Use a work journal

#86

Post by clara_heredia »

simpaticoder wrote: post #63
galaxyLogic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Keep trying. Try different methods. What works for me debugging and refactoring distributed systems may not work for you. The thing I tend to drive toward is a single page mind-map-like artifact that is monotonically increasing in density with a focus on system-of-record and data flow. I tend to keep notes about individual tech and important systems in whatever tools are handy, either locally or in a form that are ac…

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Re: Use a work journal

#87

Post by clara_heredia »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #73
DenisM wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Feed them all to an LLM?

I've thought about that. The AI should figure it out. But if I don't know what I should ask the AI it cannot much help me. I wrote in some discussion about whether AI could replace us programmers? I think they cannot because: AI has the answers. WE have the questions!

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Re: Use a work journal

#88

Post by clara_heredia »

m3kw9 wrote: post #58
galaxyLogic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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Re: Use a work journal

#89

Post by charles_f »

borghives wrote: post #80

Is there a benefit difference between digital journal and analog (pen) ? I’ve been having this internal debate. Any thoughts?

I like the idea of analog, there's something about writing on paper.

Practically, digital is much better. Everytime I see something that might be useful I past a link. I paste links to discussions I need to follow up on. And then I also use a homemade plugin for Obsidian that lists my to-dos across all notes(1), so whenever I think about something I need to do I just include it directly into the text and it's listed there.

I think you could do something somewhat similar on paper (I tried a while back), but the overhead is simply too much for me.

1: https://github.com/cfe84/obsidian-pw

Re: Use a work journal

#90

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

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…

I write but never reread. The act of writing helps me organize my thoughts. Maybe I'll reread the last page when coming back to something but that's it.

So my advice is to write when you have a lot on your mind so that you can get it out of your mind. That's it.

Don't mess around with forums. That's for a different problem.

Keep a pen and paper handy always. There can be no barrier to entry or it breaks the flow.

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