More on shop logs

In an earlier post, I wrote about the value of writing down what I've learned, every day.

Tonight, I was reviewing logs from last year, and I learned something, again. It's important, even though you're writing to yourself, to write as though you were writing to someone who wasn't familiar with what you were up to. I ran into a few examples that referenced entries or incidents that had happened earlier in the week, or earlier in the month, contemporary with those entries... and I really had to scratch my head to figure out what I'd been talking about. I also found some sketches that were a little too rough to figure out exactly what was being illustrated. How embarrassing...

But I've also learned that I need to take more time to detail what I'm working on from day to day, just because you never know what's going to happen. I'm in the middle of streamlining a process for building mitered boxes, but it's been interrupted frequently by some issues that I've had to deal with lately in my personal life. So this particular batch of boxes has taken a lot longer than it normally would have... and I don't remember everything that's happened, or how much time it took.

Clearly I need to spend more time on my shop logs.