Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you manage your day to day work logs?

32 pointsborncrusader58 comments

As a developer with a not so stellar memory, I feel confident to keep track of what I'm working on and the stuff that were discussed in meetings on a day to day basis as they serve as a record of things that can be revisited in the future for reference.

I've tried several solutions - Evernote, simple markdown, yaml, workflowy etc. but still haven't had a proper routine as I'm not entirely satisfied with any of the tools.

What do you folks use to track your work logs (if you do that)?

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Org Mode stored on Dropbox.

At any given moment I have two "running" files - one being a general tasklist, and one being this month's notes.

On the general tasklist I maintain my own, much more detailed, copy of what's in the issue tracker we use. I rotate that file every few months, copying over unfinished tasks. I also use it to record any bug and weird thing I spot with the application, if I don't have time to investigate it, so that I won't forget it and can come back to it later.

The monthly notes file has entries for each work day. Each entry follows the same template:

  * <2017-07-26 wed>

  ** Things I want to accomplish
  *** TODO A task
      Some notes under it.

  ** Other work notes
     This is my scratch area. Here I just type when I need to talk to myself.

  ** End-of-day mind dump
     Here I dump the state of my head at the end of the workday, so that
     I can pull it in quickly the next day.

  ** Jira for today                                                      :jira:
     Here I note down task numbers I want to log time on - at least if
     they don't match the commit log 1:1.

  ** Insight from today                                               :insight:
     Here I try to note down something important or insightful I discovered
     that day.

  ** Things that should be automated                                 :automate:
     A most recent addition to the template - if something is repetitive
     and annoys me, it goes here.

The template is evolving, and I'm not always consistent in actually using it, but I'm trying - and it proves very helpful when I'm dealing with a difficult problem, or for some non-work reasons have problems concentrating. It's also my place for writing down stuff I wouldn't bother (or wouldn't dare) post on the issue tracker.

And for the millionth time I wish vim had orgmode!

I use vimwiki and have a per project wiki for notes and issues, but I need to formalize it.

I use timetrap for the basic "what am I working on" notes. Works ok.

cmd-tab to a different program. Not really a show stopper if you want to use org-mode in Emacs....But then you may just end up cmd-tabing to a more feature rich Note taking program.

Try Spacemacs! Its vim keyndings are excellent, and then you get all the advanced stuff emacs has to offer.

I generally use vim for day to day editing, but switch to Spacemacs when I need something more powerful. It's a pretty seamless experience.

Org mode, stored in Git, stored in Dropbox.

(Git is used mainly so I can roll back a config change when I screw something up through tinkering with my setup).

I love the free form nature of org mode, but its killer features for me are - really easy to pull out lists of tasks, no matter where they are, or how deeply they're nested - ability to track time info directly against tasks, and then automatically generate timesheet info

I do something similar, org in Dropbox, with todo list in one file and "engineering journal" in another.

But I just create the journal entries as needed (often for meeting notes) with function that creates opens the journal buffer and narrows it to a single new timestamped entry.

I see there's now a package https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OrgJournal for this kind of thing.

Org Mode looks cool. I'm a vim guy and I hope vim-orgmode is as good. Will give it a spin! Thanks! :)

I use a notebook with a pen and something roughly corresponding to the bullet journal format. Portable, power outage safe, hard to steal remotely and easy-ish to slot into the legal process if required.

I'll second this. I keep a fountain pen with my notebook because fountain pens make me want to write more.

This is the way to do it. With a nice notebook and a nice pen, writing becomes a pleasure. I has the added benefit of your notes naturally becoming neater.

I also love the Pigma Micron 03 pens.

The pen is the toughest choice!

I like the Uniball Vision Elite with the bold point in blue.

I've run out today and am reduced to a US Government Skilcraft pen. A decided downgrade

Definitely! Second hardest is paper for me. I've finally settled on Muji's .7 pens and .5 grid notebooks. Very cheap, and the notebooks are thin enough that you get a frequent fresh start.

I choose physical notebooks over digital because it's easier to go freeform when needed and you don't need most of what you think is important at the time.

Can recommend OHTO Horizon as a general fine ballpoint (and I have an OHTO Minimo in my card case for emergencies.)

I've been meaning to get a fountain pen myself. Never did I expect to know about pens in this thread. :) The Pigma Micron looks fabulous (and not so expensive too) as well.

Try Pilot Metropolitan, they are nice entry-level fountain pens.

Pilot Capless (Matt Black, slowly turning bronze) - best pen I own by a long way.

My house was burgled 3 weeks ago. The most irritating thing they stole was a diary... Quite irreplaceable. I have no idea why they took it, I can only imagine looking for passwords.

That sucks, diaries really are irreplaceable. For work logs, I keep mine in a locked office. I'd be pretty boned if someone broke in there no matter what!

I'm a big fan of the Bullet Journal method too (http://bulletjournal.com).

Started about 7 months ago and use it daily. I got a black Leuchtturm 1917 for work, and a white one for personal.

I used to keep daily notes in a Dropbox folder, edited and searchable with Sublime Text, but the physical notebook is much better.

The trick for me is page numbers and a table of contents

Google Docs works well too, I think. Just create a spreadsheet and log in your to-dos as needed. Makes it easy to go back over and track what you were able to accomplish. I spend 5 minutes every morning thinking about what I want to do that day, type out 3-5 key goals, then at the end of the day I copy and paste what I was able to do (with any amendments if I think of other things) into a Google Sheet. Easy to add things like "time spent" or "project" if you want -- just add rows or data validation to the Google Sheet. Then pivot table that as needed.

It's always a good idea to track your time. If you were looking for a more automated approach, Harvest integrates with just about everything and makes adding notes as you do commits or close out tasks pretty painless. Free for single users too.

* Time Tracking and Invoicing Software Pricing - Harvest || https://www.getharvest.com/pricing

This is interesting, since there are so many tools out there designed to make these things easier -- e.g. I use taskwarrior with Gnome pomodoro... (Not to mention giving away personal data to the "cloud".)

I made a logger web app that I run locally that allows me maintain logs, visually grouped by day, and with an arbitrary number of extra fields per log (so, 'mood' for my journal log, 'minutes' and 'tags' for my various client logs, just 'tags' for my code experiment log, etc.).

In the web interface I can simply append something to the /logs/ url, so usually for a new work project I'll go to the /logs/work-<clientname> url and start keeping track of things.

Making a nice visualization of all this is high on my list of things to build, but even just scrolling back through the various logs has been extremely valuable to me. Especially for projects that have a lot of downtime (I'm a freelancer).

I use this system which I've mentioned before (AGPL):

http://onemodel.org

...because it tracks all my to-dos, and I mark them off when done ("archived") in a few keystrokes. Then there is a simple feature for displaying the ~"journal" for a date range which defaults to starting yesterday at midnight: everything created or archived in that time is shown, so I've basically stopped keeping track in any other way, of what I have done, as I can always look it up.

I used to use org-mode, "inspiration" (an old windows program for collapsible outlines and mind maps), and various text editors, but this is the most efficient and flexible I have found.

It has no mouse or mobile support yet, but it is the best thing I've found for any kind of notetaking (I'm the author). It needs simpler installation and added features but is stable and works really well, really efficient once you get familiar, and everything is on the screen. I hope to add anki-like features in the future. Contributions welcome.

ps: this program is like a textual mind map that is highly efficient to use from the keyboard, uses postgresql, and can handle large amounts of data, having the same thing linked in more than one place, etc etc, so you can organize all possible stuff in aribitrary ways to suit yourself: I tend to use a few hierarchies and some frequent categories go in multiple places, for convenience. I use it to keep lists of gift ideas, todos, calendar, all notes, plans, personal journal, and it just gets the job done with the lowest impedance of anything i have tried or heard of. It has an auto "journal-generation" feature, some finicky import/export features to html or to/from text, searching, somewhat limited file storage, and more.

edit: pps: lots of info at the web site, FAQs etc. The latest code is in github in the "wip" branch, where I am working (very slowly) on an infrastructure for sharing/linking info between instances.

I just keep a simple flat text file. I have a command that opens that file and positions the cursor at the end. I have a simple editor command that adds a new timestamp when I start a new day. There is really no other structure (well, notes that say 'TODO' with checkboxes like [] for "not done" and [x] for "done", but that's really it).

The file is many megabytes long, and that's useful because it's incredibly easy to search.

I've tried other approaches, other tooling, and really it just came down to realizing that there was tremendous value in keeping a log, and that to be successful I had to keep it dirt simple rather than switching horses to new shiny every few months.

Onenote for detailed logs on a specific issue (bug/feature/research)

TFS for tracking effort in a sprint. And I no longer take notes -- our sprint planner takes notes in individual user stories.

Todoist for task management outside of TFS (and also for personal tasks)

+1 to OneNote. The Notebook/Section/Page paradigm is super intuitive and convenient. You can create/copy hyperlinks to different notebooks/sections/pages/paragraphs, so it's easy to make a master notebook with shortcuts for navigation.

(un)fortunately I'm standardized on OneNote 2007, vs. the later versions, but keyboard shortcuts for it in 2007 on Win7 are fantastic. Win+Shift+N to bring up OneNote with the last page open, Win+N for a new unfiled note, and various "tags" and searches. Many Win key shortcuts have changed in Win 10 and later versions of OneNote.

I use checkbox tags for Ctrl-1 (you can assign Ctrl-# to particular tags), so you can easily make a checklist by just typing an item and then hitting Ctrl-1 to make a "todo". You can mark it as done by hitting Ctrl-1 again on the same line. You can also insert timestamps with Alt-Shift-F so you can note when you completed something or similar. Win+S brings up a screen snipping tool for quick documentation on a topic as you go.

I'm a big fan of OneNote. I use it on my Mac, iPhone, Windows machine, and Android phone to keep a bunch of stuff in sync.

I have one section that contains a Note for each week. I archive the notes after awhile. Each week I start a new Note for that week, and update it daily. At the top, I keep my task list of things to do. When I go to copy it to the next week's note, I rank what's important and not.

I have a section called "projects" where I create a note for each Major project I'm working on. Here's where I create a Dashboard for what's going on with that project.

I have a section called "company" where I create notes related to my big companies process/procedures.

I have a section called "releases" where I have all the release notes stored of all the features that have gone into the project: this is so I can find almost anything instantly with the search functionality. I also have a note called Current Release, that I use as a scratch pad for the current things going on.

In general, any important email that I need to save from Corp, I transpose into my OneNote notebook. I also link a lot of my TODOs that I need to have deadlines on into Tasks in Outlook (I don't do this on my Mac.)

Anyway, I"ve used a lot of tools, like Org-mode, Evernote, Reophnotes, nValt, etc....and have been happy with the tool called One Note.

Etc....

I use a variation of the Bullet Journal, but I use MSFT One Note to manage it.

I think the big thing, no matter what you do, is to establish a routine of reviewing it for a few minutes daily. No matter where you're capturing ideas, todos, status etc, I believe you need to have dedicated mental processing time to maintain the list, keep it clean, organize priority, etc. Even if you can't do it daily (you may not need to), try to aim for once/week to review and iterate....

(I'm trying to give you more of a philisophy for managing it than a technology, because no matter which tech you go with, without an established process, you'll fail.)

i strongly second this need for a routine proceses, with whatever tool.

I use a Google Doc. I insert each entry at the top, with the date and a bulleted list of things I did (each check-in, each meeting with notes, and anything else I discovered or decided). It's also a good place to jot down who I had lunch with (and things discussed), Meetups I went to, vacation days I took, etc. I keep this in an open tab and write stuff as it happens. I name the Doc after the year, like "Work Log 2017" and switch to a new doc January 1. It's been invaluable.

Simple and neat. :)

Paper and pen (of two colors).

Draw a circle with text to the right, bottom, etc, connect to other items and sketches with arrows. In top left corner there is a type-box with "task|iss|pm|adm" text or combination of these — that quickly describes contents of the page. In progress, Completed, Rejected items are marked with ..., V, X. Once all is completed/rejected, big (V) mark near type-box is drawn, (W) for "even tested". If related group is completed, draw bounding shape and big (V) in it. Use colors for better visual cues.

Draw shortened operative plan (with ...) on separate temporary page. Dispose it once complete.

Put all papers into "punched pocket"[1] in you-see-latest order.

I tried many tools and formats, but these are either unflexible or slow to create, this tradeoff was never beaten. At first glance, one may note that there is no search or redraw capabilities, but these are not really necessary, if you follow simple rules.

Never reuse page for something completely unrelated or temporary. Use only one side of paper. Disallow your colleagues to draw anything on it, always have blank pages for them. Redraw papers that were wasted like above. Every [edit]discussed task should have a circle and text. Once punched pocket is full, archive bottom half of it into hard folder.

Listing these pages makes me instantly remember the entire situation/discussion. It never happens with post-created electronic records.

  [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_pocket

I tend to take a more task-oriented approach. If there is something important that is related to product, that will go in JIRA and scheduled/assigned appropriately. If I need to do something in the future that nobody else really cares about, including what I want to work on tomorrow, I'll just use slack [0] to remind me. Other than that I don't really bother with notes. I've tried in the past but things change so quickly I've never had value in reviewing notes, other than to get the action items. Notable exceptions made for board meetings and other official business.

I've also been using DropBox Paper [1] a bit recently. They have a really cool meeting template so if someone is taking notes they can easily invite the team from Google Calendar and assign simple followup tasks from there using @mentions in a checklist.

[0]: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/208423427-Set-a-rem... [1]: https://www.dropbox.com/help/paper/smart-meeting-notes

tl;dr — Pivotal Tracker is the be-all and end-all of software development tracking.

As a developer, I don't hold myself accountable to any work that isn't written down in a user story prioritized by my product manager — the only person to whom I answer. Requirements don't come from meetings; they come from this backlog. I take work off the top, and when it's delivered I can easily filter into a historical view of my accomplishments (isolated from amongst my team's).

Within a single feature, I use TDD to orient myself forward: a test that's failing tells me what _technical_ requirement stands between myself and delivering the feature. If I am working on something that doesn't lend itself to testing — i.e. dev-ops — I will keep a context-stack of sticky notes that churns hourly, and is tossed at the end of the day.

Above features, Tracker's concept of Epics allows my team to measure progress on new wings of our users' journey, but I don't think at that level on a daily basis; only periodically when asked to wear a UX hat as part of a design exercise.

For the fuzzy things around the edges, I do use a half-assed bullet-journal. It mostly comprises questions like "why am I in this meeting?" or "when will this be written into a user story?"

I also use 750words.com to "take the edge off", some days. I fill it with stream-of-consciousness reflections that may later prime and inform my contributions to process-design exercises.

Tracker will appear heavy-handed for a team without a dedicated product manager who relies on developers' estimates to inform their sovereignty over backlog priorities.

This is wonderful but with a huge catch. :)

For me, things aren't as rosy as it is for you. I do a lot of research-y learnings on the side and that isn't really tracked through any board.

750words.com looks cool though. I use vim to document my journal once in a while but should give this a try once.

Shell script, markdown files and MacDown markdown app

    $ today
    created TODAY-20170726.md

- https://github.com/erikj/bin/blob/master/bin/today

- https://macdown.uranusjr.com/

Macdown is nice. I use markdown and vim for my journal and use some shell aliases to create the files with some snippets. Macdown will be a good addition.

I created an app that makes it easy for you to save notes or jot down everything necessary, even allows for HTML and CSS designs. It is called MyPost ( https://mypost.io )

And yes, it was created in part because my memory sucks badly.

After you've created your post, you can save the link and associate it with your email address so you can return back to it later on. Save a bunch of posts and you can always view them later.

While I don't have a routine for day-to-day logs, I use it often to keep track of activities, write to-do lists, even use it to take quick notes, like if I'm working with a client and I write everything down... I create a new MyPost... they can keep track of it and even comment on things that are done or have yet to be done. All URLs are custom and you "own" that URL. I even wrote a post on all the things I thought of what people could do with it.

https://mypost.io/post/what-can-i-do-with-mypost

Simple to use. Find your use!

Org mode with some fairly well-worn templates. My daily log is in datetree format. I have a few agenda options so at my weekly meeting I can get a quick review of what I've done during the week (or quarter if I'm writing quarterly notes).

If I go to a meeting I take notes with pen and paper and transfer them in elaborated form when I return. Good note taking is a skill, though!

I dabbled with an ultra quick template (F12 to write a single line in a mega list with a date stamp at the front of each item, no options, no slowdown). I found the discipline of taking slow notes at the end of every task or day much better than effectively tweeting my day to my future self.

One thing that I've found difficult is having task/project journals that work easily into this flow. Tags help but I found I was duplicating everything in changelogs.

I'm not sure if I'm unique here. I track approximately every half hour of time I'm working in Google calendar. This fits nicely with other scheduled meetings. I usually just copy paste jira ticket number + title. At the end of the day, this helps me quickly total the number of hours spent on each ticket to enter into jira. For actual Todo items that aren't in jira, I use my email inbox. I do something very similar to something I saw posted on HN a few days ago called 'zeroinbox'.

That's why I built https://wakatime.com, which is a plugin in your text editor that automatically tracks what you worked on.

I use taskwarrior (for tracking todo items) and timewarrior (for logging work and what I've done with those items). It integrates nicely in my current workflow (every time I spawn a new tmux window a todo list along with my current time tracking and my calendar for the rest of the day pop up), and it emails my personal address at 18:30 a list of what I've accomplished for the day and the highest priority tasks for the day tomorrow.

I do like to live in the console. If you're not a console/cli junkie, this might not work for you.

I would flag an email with something I have to do or to follow up and when I have nothing to do will sort my emails by flags and will work or follow up on them, the rest I keep in my head...

Trello -- I keep a list for all active projects, and drop a card on each list when something changes. Allows for a quick scan to see where I'm with each of my projects.

-Google tasks (for long standing things, to remind me that i should think about it from time to time)

-A note block with ramblings on.

-Ipad pro. (I recently tried to switch away from the note block but unfortunately it does not work as well as the old note block did)

-And i have recently set up a intricate system consisting of Post-it's on a wall. (will evaluate it as i go but so far it is good)

-Complete shit as fast as i get it so that i don't have to remember. (this i the one that really get stuff done)

Pen and paper. Digital tools still aren't flexible enough to capture the full functionality of pen and paper.

I try to write anything complex, easy to be forgotten and relevant to the project at an official place like a shared functional spec document, a wiki or edited into a jira ticket.

For my own day-to-day todo list I use workflowy. These are things that I just delete once dealt with.

I tried workflowy but their limit on having 250 items on the free tier is limiting. I don't like the fact that they categorize every bullet as an "item". Some bullets can just be simple text stub rather than representing a whole item.

I use jrnl http://jrnl.sh/, which is an excellent command-line app for time-based capture. It also supports tagging and has a really useful query mechanism.

I use trello similar to this workflow (http://www.mytodoodly.com/).

Disclaimer: I am working Todoodly as a side-project.

Standard Notes works well for this. Cross-platform with fast sync, along with Markdown and Code editors.

https://standardnotes.org

I created something called "Task files" in CoCalc.com. For each thing I'm doing in a project, I make a task, do it, and then mark it done. All past tasks are searchable.

I use Google Sheets. One of my friend started to try out using a Slack Channel and aggregates the info every week.

I list down how I manage my work logs here. I hope this article helps you

https://hackernoon.com/an-organized-chaos-5c844f8a9c82?sourc...

We got a small app that tracks activities

TextWrangler and NV.

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