I want to know how difficult/useful it is to keep a project log or diary. I'm worried that keeping track of what I did will eat up too much time...
How useful is a project log or diary?
project management;agile
I'm worried that keeping track of what I did will eat up too much time...I worry about the opposite. I oftentimes find that the cost of not documenting something eats up even more of my time. Maybe it doesn't happen today. Maybe not tomorrow, but at some point most of the things that I have done have come up again at some point, and it generally happens after enough time has passed for my brain to consider it unimportant.Thus, I document things. I document decisions I've made, agreements made with team members, and most importantly, I document my code, even if it just involves using keywords to make it easier to grep the project for a certain function or line of code.In some cases, the documentation has saved others' time as well. It's these cases where the X minutes spent documenting became an investment in itself where the X minutes invested gave a Y*X minute return in time savings!Lastly, in other cases, I've found documenting work helps me remember it. In some cases, I never looked at the documentation again because for me, writing something down is a catalyst for burning it into my memory.Everyone is different, and you'll need to find what works for you. As for me, I can't say that I've regretted time spent documenting my work, but I sure as heck have regretted the times I haven't.