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If you took a lab in college like I did, you’d probably know how much your professors forced students to keep an engineering notebook. Well, it turns out that keeping an engineering notebook really pays off significantly. There’s a lot to gain by keeping a documented account of your work.

It helps you record your solutions and store it in one centralized location. How many times have you come across the same problem when working and not recall that pivotal eureka moment that let you arrive at your solution? Even if your solution is not made explicity in your notebook, even retracing  the steps taken to achieve your answer will help you jog your memory faster than anything else can.

Engineering notebooks can help you to reveal previous trends. The items that wasn’t so obvious when you are in the thick of it. Things such as individual workflow habits and the effort spent on each task.

Documents a history of work as evidence Working in a creative role, it is sometimes hard to quantify your level of effort against a certain task or group of tasks. When it comes to software development, it seems there are always items that have not been taken into account of in the official project plan. We’ve all been there. There’s always “that one other thing” you have to do before you get into the main task at hand. Before you know it , the level of effort it takes to accomplish the periphery tasks snowball out of control. Next thing you know, your boss is hovering over your desk demanding to know why a task that was slated for half a day has been unresolved for a week. An engineering notebook can help you persuade them by showing them exactly how much effort is going into finding a solution. (Of course, it’s your job to estimate tasks responsibly but that’s another topic altogether).

You can set up your engineering notebook with as much flexibility as you require. Honestly, any notebook would do but what works for me are unlined spine-bound notebooks.  I feel that unlined ones are important because they allow me the flexibility to use the writing space any way I choose to. Doodle, scratch out, mindmap – it’s up to you. Marble composition books are nice but I personally went with a higher class of notebook(I am a bit of a snob when it comes to this sort of stuff). The Moleskine Cahier was my choice because I am such a big fan of Moleskine and their legacy. So, when I came across their soft-cover notebook series I knew it would be perfect for what I needed. A little bit on the pricey side but well worth it if you’re into quality. $16.00 will get you a package of 3.

On a typical day, I start off my entry in my notebook by writing the date at the top. Page numbers work for some but I like making my table of contents using dates as my points of reference instead of page numbers. That way once you complete a significant milestone, you can put the starting date and ending date in your table of contents along with a brief description of the milestone as your description. Most people make checklists of tasks to do for the day. This can either be a list of pending tasks or just an aggressive three-point agenda that simply has to get done. Another common thing to do is to start providing a small summary of a sizable activity you are doing. I find that the extra mental effort involved in writing down clearly of what I am doing, why I am doing it, and what the expected result is keeps me focused and motivated to push ahead with the task. It’s important to make these messages meaningful. We don’t need any pointless essays or formal pseudocode. Likewise, engineering notebooks should not be a place to collect meeting notes. Use scraps of paper or a mini-legal pad for that. Once you have had time to internalize the meeting notes, then you should record whatever you feel is relevant to your individual workflow. Test results, case studies, and task-switching events are all acceptable items to place in your notebook as well. Remember that what you are trying to go for here is to capture the thought process involved in solving a particular problem. Don’t worry about seizing every minutiae of work into your notebook. It’s there if you need it and you are encouraged to use it.

In the end, the fact remains that you always need to be ready to capture valuable ideas when it hits you. Those precious flashes of insight come too far and few between. They cannot be forced out into stark reality, only encouraged. By keeping a recorded design journal, you’ll be able to document your work activities, encourage creative thinking and maybe even catch a glimpse of your next great idea hidden just between the lines. What are some ways that you record your design work?