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Ask HN: How do you, personally, keep a work journal?

4 points by nevster ↗ HN
Assuming you keep one. For a long time, I've kept a paper journal for work - usually just 2 lines each day - the day and date, and a line or two of what I did. Helps with standup meetings the next day and has also been helpful to look back and find out when I worked on something.

I'm quite partial to paper but I occasionally would like to search, so I'm thinking of an electronic format - text file, google doc, or something else.

What are your suggestions for keeping an electronic journal?

8 comments

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empressplay
Isn't that what commit logs are for?
nevster
Perhaps I should say 'work journal'. It's not necessarily code related. I've updated the title to clarify. Thanks!
chrisbennet
I keep multiple journals, one per project. I use Notepad and a program I wrote years ago to total the hours up for billing purposes.

It's great for long term remembering, like what settings were used for a serial port, links to downloads, etc. I also like to put a "Next:..." line at the end of the day so when I open the log in the next morning I immediately know what I need to work on.

jdavis4665
I use the "Work" journal from Stealth Journals.