Tell HN: Thing I learned this year was keeping a work journal

7 Muromec 1 8/8/2025, 9:50:30 AM

I once saw a comment suggesting to keep a working journal here and I want to say it's the best thing since figuring out how and why to write unit tests.

Whenever I have to do something that involves more than one line in more than one file, I make another text file, called JOURNAL in the root of the project and write down all the things I plan to get back to.

All the side quests spawned from fixing that one bug, all the slightly obscure parts that I need to figure out what they were doing, all the missing unit tests. And then I don't publish the PR until all of them are either ticked off or transferred to whatever JIRA-hell I have.

I unlocks two capabilities -- 1) I can just close my laptop at any time and whenever I get back I still remember all the half-done, to be checked later, doesnt-break-the-build-but-is-obviously-wrong things. and 2) I can open two probjects each with it's own JOURNAL and switch between them without pain.

Keeping the write ahead log to recover from memory loss isn't only for filesystems, it's for minds too. Shocker.

Comments (1)

Room10Mind · 2h ago

You’re 100% correct. Everyone must keep a work journal. At least emailing themselves everyday to keep track of things. Hugely helpful when you want to reflect on your progress, and decide if the company you’re in right now gives you the opportunity to grow the way you want.

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