Have a weekly prompt to take screenshots of your work.
Most of the digital record of my career is already gone.
I'm old enough that the first things I ever made on a computer1 were in Clarisworks on floppy disks.
While I obviously can't open those anymore, I've lost much more. When I did the redesign post in 2020 this blog's software was old enough that it was non-trivial to "rewind" and take screenshots of how it used to look. Soon it will be nearly imposible.
The first projects I ever built as a professional are all gone. They weren't captured by the Internet Archive, the original design files weren't in git or were in old versions of Photoshop or Indesign that aren't even compatible with modern versions… even if I was willing to pay for it. It's all gone.
Which brings me to the main point.
One of the most important ritual habits I recently adjusted: Take Screenshots.
At the end of the week I remind myself to look back and record any work that I'm proud of…
- meetings where I contributed…
- designs I pushed forward…
- research insights I gathered…
- conflict I helped work through…
- anything I shipped…
I take screenshots of things visual, and write tweet-length summaries of all of it.
I keep the screenshots and logs in my personal log, and translate it to my current professional goal-system.
It makes easier reviewing quarterly/yearly goals, and provides me with a sense of satisfaction and growth that is invaluable.
References:
- Alex Wichlan wrote a great blog post about this that I think I encountered a while back.
- I feel certain that I've encountered Jason Scott (textfiles) advising this somewhere.
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2024-09-16 11:31:18 -0500
Add journaling tag
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2024-09-16 10:51:23 -0500
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