"4 days of sleepless afternoons", love it! I was laughing out loud multiple times. Keep writing, please!
Thanks, I'm glad you noticed this one
Use a work journal
291–300 of 305 posts
Re: Use a work journal
#292Is there a benefit difference between digital journal and analog (pen) ? I’ve been having this internal debate. Any thoughts?
I've yet to find anything better than pen and paper. You just grab the pen and go. Also, it's really hard to hack paper.
Apple Pencil & iPad works fairly well, but the multipurpose nature of the device often means that I need to navigate back to my note taking app.
Typing things into a log (for me) effectively pipes it to /dev/null.
Re: Use a work journal
#293A physical notebook has been excellent for me for capture and increased retention/recall.
Where it falls apart is locating informatoin.
For this, logseq has been invaluable, having no set standard or way than scribbling my notes the same way in logseq, with completely invented hashtags that only I remember (yay) I never have to tag much on my own, thanks to the auto-tagging plugin, I just type the word and it does it on it's own as long as I've done this.
This kind of a work journal is more of a log, it doesn't quite hit the spot of "where do I put a longer form document" similar to what Obsidian, Notion, or Anytype might allow. That's probably a lack of my looking into it. I have seen people install a Logseq vault inside a Obsidian directory to have the best of both worlds in one storage and that seems quite elegant and simple for a solution.
I'm more and more considering a Remarkable or Supernote... as I do like the writing and drawing.
If anyone's using an ipad mini to make their note taking life easier happy to hear as well, the screen is a tad small, it can be partially reoriented, etc, but mostly these days, note taking is about workflow too
Re: Use a work journal
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, I just try to not slack off too much. I've been doing this for nearly 2 years and so far only benefits as far as I can tell. I think very few people look at it besides myself and occasionally my boss.
Yeah I definitely don’t slack off (at this job, I’m precious it was terrible), so that wouldn’t be the concern. It’s more like I think I’m quite a private person. What would be the benefits that you’ve seen out of it?
Uh, I think just having a clear record of what I did when is helpful. It also is motivating to me, I want to close out items not just write that I started something. I sometimes also put in a todo there if there is just something small at the top of the stack I want to do tomorrow. I'll see the todo there and deal with it first.
Re: Use a work journal
#295I don't do a journal, but I do like to do "end of day" notes. Working on adding database binary support to my JS framework [1] and finished last night with this (just dropped in a Markdown file):
---
Latest version of DB installer is breaking.
Why:
- We had it bump all DB versions to latest. MongoDB is failing on MacOS.
- MongoDB is failing on Linux and PostgreSQL is failing to build.
Ideas:
- Separate the logic off by database/platform. This will ensure that once we lock in a database/platform combo, it’s set unless we mess with it. Current set up is getting increasingly complex to the point of insanity.
- Go through, one database at a time tomorrow, for each platform. Get it perfect on each for the latest version (unless there’s a compat issue) and then move on to the next.
Good news:
- The basic idea WORKS. We can always roll back to older versions and figure out the latest stuff later, but I don’t think we’ll need to. It’s just going to take a full day of work to get 100%.
- This is worth it as this is the last major barrier to entry. It also removed headaches with people saying “works for me” while others say “it doesn’t work.”
---
Makes the next day's ramp up take a few minutes as opposed to who knows how long.
Re: Use a work journal
#296I 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.
I loved this idea ! I decided to develop a cli that reproduces these commands here for those interested: https://github.com/sahbic/todo-cli
It can synchronize tasks on github, and I can use a telegram bot to list and add tasks to the list from my mobile phone.
Re: Use a work journal
#297I'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…
Somewhat OT, but tangentially related: One of my clients likes to tell me his work requirements by telling me long-winded stories about how he came up with an idea, what exactly happened, etc. that was useful at first but became extremely wasteful of time as years passed. I tried typing down notes while he talked, but it became too hard to write useful ones.
At some point, I resorted to keeping an audio recording of the whole meeting just to make sure I have something to come back to, in case my notes fail me.
I wouldn't do this for everything, but it helped me realize that an audio/video log like a dashcam video can work for certain scenarios.
Re: Use a work journal
#298The best thing I ever did for work was to get a notebook and keep a running todo. Every few days I start a new entry, copying over old items and ignoring items that aren't important anymore. I then prioritise my work and get going. This has been my constant over the last 15 years and has always served me well (very low friction, easy to use pen and paper to jot out ideas/thoughts/todos).
I have expanded that a bit in the few years. I now also use Obsidian as my digital wiki. If I'm researching topics, etc. I store it in Obsidian. It's basically my second brain and really helps when I need to remember the details of something I looked at months in the past.
The other thing I started doing is keeping a running work journal in a Google doc where I summarize what I did each day. This is more out of necessity, as I need to write my performance review each year and I use this to summarize what I did.
Re: Use a work journal
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use org mode and sync with a git repository. Thoughtfully emacs and git are both approved.
Do you have any hooks setup to automatically commit/push if file changes are detected?
I have a server hook to make a commit (which causes the push to fail) if I forget to manually make one. I have F10 in emacs setup to commit and pull to local. Local is also setup to rebase on pull.
Re: Use a work journal
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 for physical notes (: I use a lot of diagrams / sketches / arrows between things / etc, so doing it all in text on a computer is too cumbersome. Of course, with paper, looking up something from the past is a pain sometimes.
True for me too. The only advantages of digital notes (for me) have been searchability and shareability. One thing I keep occasionally going back to is Notion - for LaTeX support (I tend to use a lot of math. symbols) and now diagramming support using mermaid (since 2022, but I discovered that only a few months ago, and I find myself spending a little more time in Notion now). Just fyi in case it helps : - )
If you're into notion I wanna recommend obsidian. It's got support for both of those and it's way more lightweight. If you use the tables and images a lot I will say notion is simpler to use there, the same is possible in obsidian but it's more work for sure, but when I was using it it started to feel bloated and even though I love it I wanted something smoother and obsidian has been exactly that. Plus local storage as markdown for reliable access even if obsidian ends up shutting down or something is nice, and unbeatable for searchability since you can ripgrep through it all with ease.