Work Logs

[bjarvis]

Does anyone out there keep logs of their daily work activities?


Thursday, November 16, 2006
8 AM - Arrival; 8:45 AM daily status conference call
- SOX: Evidence collection for Scott Atkins
- SOX: Tracing ID ownerships for Mario Wiley
- NIS+ retirement conference call, update reports & ticket submissions
- Standards docs update, review
- Documentation meeting with Greg, Anne, Jack & Chris
4 PM - Departure


I've been writing my general activities into a worklog every day since 1997 or so. I started when I became a contractor as a contracting mentor strongly recommended keeping these records in case some client should ever question an invoice. Since becoming a full-time employee in 2003, there's been a reduced need but the logs still are very useful, especially now during our annual performance review activities.

I keep my logs handwritten in dead tree format. It's much harder to search for past items, but the book is clearly owned by me: the employer can't possibly access it or begin to claim ownership over it if a dispute should arise. These are my records, not the company's records. Written in my hand, it can't be easily modified or forged. Since I started this for accounting & audit purposes, these factors trounce the potential usefulness of searchability. (Detailed procedures and commands or particularly unusual events get scribbled into my Palm if there's a chance I'll need to search for them.)

Anyone else do this?

Comments

[bearfinch.livejournal.com]

I keep a work "diary" book where I write down key information form day to day (i.e. problems with equipment, contacts and contact numbers, project time, etc), but somewhat less organised that yours. I find it very helpful to be able to look up information, especially if it's about something that I did years ago.