A while ago, I came across this wonderful article made by Jesper L. Andersen, called On Logbooks. I'll try to sum up the main concepts here, but I encourage all of you the read the full content on Medium. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The concept is extremely simple: you keep a log of your work so you can refer back to it later. ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀
By keeping track of your work, you'll be able to: ⠀
- find old stuff you didn't even remember you wrote down at some point in time;⠀
- keep links to papers, source files or issues you're working on;
- answer, with ease, questions like “What did I do two weeks ago?” and "Am I doing too many things at once?";⠀
- look back and see what can be done better;
- clear your brain once in a while since it has been documented elsewhere; ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Andersen's Log comprises two files: one for work, and one for personal projects. In each file, he emphasizes that you should: ⠀
- keep track of dates;
- try to document the purpose of the new piece of code, so you know why it's important to implement this part;
- write down how hard you think the code is to complete;
- document if you had multiple solutions and if a test comes up with a surprising result;
🔥 At the beginning of this README, you can see an example of how I do my Log. You can use it as a reference or elaborate yours from scratch. The main goal is that your Log fulfills your needs while building it remains comfortable.