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by Feoh 5038 days ago
I wish the article had a bit more meat to it. Not that this is a sin but he's just parroting things said in about 1000 other places by 1000 other people. Pen and paper good. Check. Daily journal. Check.
2 comments

The OP is keeping a journal, so he has developed a real practice that works for him. I agree that a few sentences describing what he puts in there would have made this article stronger.

The second image of the journal page seems to show a list of possible approaches to a problem. The fourth image looks as if it has performance data and evaluation of a working system, so that is a couple of ideas. I think it is quite a brave thing to post the actual images. Perhaps fortunate the OP does not record team dynamics in his journal.

I work as a teacher, and I use a cheap page a day diary to record a few key points from each lesson. The 'readymade' aspect of the page a day diary seems to reduce the 'threshold' for making notes.

It usually goes:

* Write a todo. Ex: Log errors from Fb. * Ask a question if I'm stuck. Ex: Will Log4R block the reactor? * Play with various approaches. Ex: Write in thread, plug into Goliath's logger. * Note any bugs. Ex: Logger blah blah * Rinse and repeat.

I know its a silly example, but you get the idea. Hope that helps.

I outlined the journal must-haves if you're conducting a programming experiment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4448853