Review is a powerful tool in getting better -- what did work, what did not. For review, reflection or reconstruction how something came to be, it is useful to have a log, because your memory is error-prone.
If you work in a laboratory, your laboratory journal is one of the most essential tools, and if you work installing computers, logging the process and what worked can be very useful, too.
On the other hand, recording things takes time, and time is the most valuable thing you have. So, how should one go about this? Getting Things Done is one of the more useful frameworks I came across.
The way I do it today is as follows:
- I just have one single private diary.
- I use this blog for essays, learnings and thoughts that might be of interest or use to someone else, or that I want to refer back to as a reference, a notepad for little interesting tidbits of information that fit nowhere else. Since entries can be edited from anywhere and updated, this is much more flexible than my old homepage that was in a master copy on one specific machine (which is the reason I put in the time to move it all to a blog).
- In work, I use old-fashioned paper sheets to make dated meeting notes, because one can jot down things much faster (although they are harder to share later) in a life meeting, especially if it is face-to-face.
- I do not do extra time-logging any more, but I schedule meetings, or block time for tasks in Outlook calendar, which therefore is a kind of log. I color time that I feel I spent productively green, so I can see my ratio of wasted admin time vs performance time visually.
- I track product improvement ideas in one product backlog document (currently on Google docs but it does not really matter that much, as long as it is visible), and from those we make sprint documents. For larger developments, there is no logging. I am better when writing things in organizing my thoughts, so long-term developments solidify when I write up strategics plans.
- I use a paper sheet at work for the TODOs, both for the physical satisfaction of crossing them off, and also because it is just much more visible. And my email inbox works as a todo, as long as a mail is in there, it is not done. I have not found a good solution for logging TODOs. The list in iPhone sucks, just as do the notes, as it does not correctly sync with outlook, and the smartphone clearly is replacing all kinds of calendars, notebooks and other gadgets. But I think this should be virtualized -- maybe send myself todo mails?
I use evenings and weekends to reflect and go over the backlogs and tasks, and prioritize things for the next day or week. Just pick only two or three things that you really want to get done, and then work like hell to get them done in spite of all distractions, is the best I have come up with. Setting yourself strict time boxes for how long you work is the best way I found so far.
That's it.
In the past, I used to have too many logs. Based on recommendation from Peter Drucker, I ran a worklog, where I logged down my dayly working time slices, which really was unproductive, as I never gained much from analyzing it. I think most of the time when you waste your time on something unimportant or unproductive, you know that you are doing it. There is no need for logging to find out.
Some times in my life I had to fill an offical time-tracking tool. This is pretty much a waste of everyone's time, unless some project manager or billing really makes use of it. If they do not, people tend to fill it afterwards, pure excise.
During my PhD I noted down what I produced, learned and administered (meta-work) in a work diary. Things I learned about a certain topic, ended up on their own cheat sheet, what is now on this blog.
