A work journal can be as simple as a lined or dotted paper notebook or a digital text file on the computer. They may be more advanced paper products like the Bullet Journal®,
What matters in the choice of the product to use, is how likely you are to use it on a daily basis. Pick the tool you’re most comfortable with.
Why a journal?
The point of a work journal is to keep track of your activities, but also events that may be of interest to you. You can use it for your job and also for your personal projects. I would, however, recommend using a different file or notebook to keep these two contexts independent.
If you use a paper notebook then it should be within your easy reach (and of a small size that fits in your pocket!). If it’s a digital file, you shouldn’t have to dig for it so make sure you keep a handy shortcut for it on your desktop and have a copy in the cloud.
Keep your cool
Don’t write anything out of angst, especially in a work environment. Keep your work journal professional and clean. Someday you may have to show something in your diary to someone. It’s simply not worth the risk.
Whether you’re planning what tasks you’ll be doing today, or just taking note of an event, remember to keep your entries short and to the point. For instance, you may write something like this:
[Current Date]
- Event: The laptop batteries for model Z were delivered by FedEx.
- Note: In the canteen, the left fridge is for food brought by staff for own consumption, and the one on the right has food shared with everyone.
- [ ]: Prepare the results for my report. I need to submit it by the end of this week.
Create a habit
Every day you should log the current date, along with the most relevant events that happened that day in your context, relevant notes for you, and the list of tasks you plan on doing. I usually precede the task entries with a small check-box that I can cross out once I complete them.
Many years ago, when I started a job as an IT Manager, I started writing down in my notebook right from the first day. The reason I did this is that I knew that I’d have to cover a lot of information in the first days and I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t forget important details that had been passed on to me and that I’d have to be accountable for.
Over the years, the information I wrote into the work journal saved me from a lot of headaches (although, unfortunately, not all of them!). From unexpected conversations with a technician to task completion, I took note of everything I could. Sometimes, information or requirements passed on to you, especially without written confirmation, can suffer unexpected changes.
Your work journal as a backup plan
It’s good to know you can always count on your notes to check what was really said or done. Of course, knowing what happened or what was said may not make you right in the eyes of your management (who usually claim to be ‘right’ without the need of any proof), but at least you won’t think you’re going crazy! Besides, having these notes will help you act as the person who saves the day when everyone appears to have forgotten what was said on a specific date. This improves your credibility with your peers and management.
Digital vs. Analog journal
One clear advantage of keeping your notebook in a digital format is that you can quickly search is for a keyword or a date whereas in a paper notebook you spend more time flipping through the pages to find what you’re looking for. On the other hand, writing down with a pen on paper will improve your learning and retention of the notes, and thus you may require less searching through them.
As for backup, however, cloud applications will always have an edge over paper because as you type, your content is being uploaded and automatically backed up. Besides providing protection against loss, these systems usually version your files so if anything corrupts them, you can go back and restore a previous version.
These applications also have the upper hand on portability, since saving your journal on the cloud means that it’ll be available on other platforms as well, like your mobile phone for instance, which will come in handy if you want to type notes while you’re on the go. This is useful for those times you remember something after work hours and want to take a quick note without having to be at the computer.
Journal as a cache memory
At work you’re bombarded with information and interruptions from everywhere, be it phone calls, emails, or ad-hoc conversations. Your journal can work as the quickest place to jot down a piece of information that you can process later. It can also serve to keep notes that are not on an email, a message, or other communication media.
Free your mind to focus
As a final thought, writing down these notes throughout the day gives you the peace of mind you need to focus on the moment. If you don’t write these down, you’ll be wasting energy by keeping these ideas active in your head.