It's often helpful to log my work on a given project, so each project has its own log sheet that is kept with its planning/support materials. I often carry these with me in my Circa to jot down quick entries (leaving a voicemail, for example), but I can also file the pages in the appropriate manila folders when needed. My logs are less for productivity assessment and more for record keeping, so I don't maintain one master journal.

When I have to bill time to several projects I use David Seah's Emergent Time Tracker: http://davidseah.com/archives/2005/11/12/the-printable-ceo-series/ It's a pretty detailed log with minimal overhead. (I actually use the Flash version, but the paper version is more flexible.) He has some other forms that are probably more suitable if you want to keep the sheets as records.

I also write down the things I get done, most of the time. For this morning, I have a string of entries with times that record when I finished building some web pages. As part of my weekly review, I go through the week's pages to trigger a list of what got done for the week. As you note, action lists are filled with things that aren't done yet, and it's nice to be able to figure out what did get done. :) You may want to copy certain items from your log (like research notes) into another place at your weekly review.

I moved from a pocket Moleskine to a "classic" size planner for just this reason -- I wanted more room in my capture tool to take more notes in general during the course of the day.

My daily log is my lifesaver -- it's just a bound notebook with numbered pages that's fairly inexpensive in the local supply store. Everything I do goes in there -- phone calls (and the outcomes of those phone calls), particularly important emails related to some aspect of a project get referenced, brainstorming results, order numbers, changes made to some database or another. It is categorically invaluable. Some of the stuff in there I never have to use again, and some of it I really really do. For the past 7 years I've worked with a series of folks with poor memories and varying stages of disorganization, and it really has helped to be able to pull out my notebook and say "yes, that was mailed off on X date, and I informed you of that fact on Y," or "on Z you requested that I follow up with ____." I use it also as "bookmarks", so that when I'm running analyses, I know exactly where I left off! Being paper, the search capabilities are a bit limited!, but for things I think I'll need to track, I'll highlight and/or write a tag in the margin, so flipping through I'm able to find things pretty rapidly.

I started doing this pre-GTD, but it has dovetailed nicely into my implementation. I pull it out at the weekly review (and frequently at my mini daily-review first thing in the morning), and am able to update project lists, NAs, and project support material, etc., as needed. Sometimes it does feel like overhead, but it has more than paid for itself. And it's wacky some of the stuff that I'm later asked to confirm -- items that I'd never have expected to have to track, so I'm really glad later to have written it down!

Plus it's a great motivational tool for those days when I'm not feeling particularly productive!

Hi mdl. A daily log/journal is a great idea, and is consistent with GTD as long as you pull out any relevant actions, projects, or waiting-fors into your action-tracking system. Also, I'd separate out "mind-sweep" collection from idea collection. The former should be torn out and placed in your inbox. Used this way, the log becomes a reference that you can use along the lines you describe (finances, etc.)

Whether it's too much work on top of everything else is your call, i.e., is the ROI there? You could try it for a month, and drop it if it's not a net improvement.

Regarding single vs. multiple, you'll have to try it. I'd error on the simpler side, but certain specific logs might warrant their own tracking (e.g., expenses).

> I would also like a running log of the "output" side of GTD--stuff that I do.

I generally tell clients that tracking completed projects can be useful, but not actions.

Finally, regarding paper, the challenge will be indexing for future retrieval. There are many paper indexing ideas out there, but the basic idea is doing some extra structuring/thinking at entry time, so that you can retrieve later. For me this is such a pain in paper (and I use paper for my GTD system), that I use a big text file for the stuff you talk about. Note that when I'm away from my computer I capture using paper (I have a section in my planner), but then the page goes into my inbox and gets entered in the file at processing & organizing time (every day or so).

Hope that helps. You might enjoy these posts:

Pickle jars, text files, and creative idea capture
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2005/11/pickle-jars-text-files-and-creative.html

Some thoughts from tracking "lessons learned" for a year
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2006/12/some-thoughts-from-tracking-lessons.html

My Big-Arse Text File - a Poor Man's Wiki+Blog+PIM
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-big-arse-text-file-poor-mans.html

Great tips here everyone. Thanks!

Thanks for the tips Cornell. In fact, a while back, the big text file idea inspired me to develop a big text file note system, so I enter my notes into a text file. Link here.

I'd agree: text files are fantastic databases, especially when combined with "tagging." So fast. So portable. Using grep, I can find whatever I want. And I have a few aliases and scripts to spit out "tag clouds" or word indexes of any subset of my notes, to get an overview of what's in my ever-growing file. I hadn't thought of putting daily log entries in there, but I might start doing it. (One thing I've found particularly useful is field delimiters. I use two colons--::--as a field delimiter. That way I can search and/or sort by field and also spit out date in a cleaned-up, easily legible format with awk. The only thing is that I have to stick to a very consistent entry format, which might be a drawback for some people.)

Anyway, I guess right now my main question has to do with how best to implement the log in a paper format. Right now, I use index cards to capture stuff (including academic notes). These have the advantage of flexibility; I can sort and file them according to topic/subject. But I do, at times, long for a chronological record of my thoughts, ideas, activities, commitments, etc.

A Moleskine as a capture device has the value of providing an automatically archived record of one's "stuff." Maybe it's simple nostalgia, but I'm drawn to the idea of being able to flip through past notebooks and see what stuff (both lofty and mundane) preoccupied me at any given time. Right now, I save only the "lofty" ideas; the rest gets thrown away after it's processed and completed. But as I'm realizing, this gives my future self only a very partial view of what my current self is doing.

To make a long story short, with index cards, the collection does not function as a log, since all the stuff gets split up, processed, and discarded. With a notebook, a record of the original "stuff" remains even after it is processed.

Is there any way to have the best of both worlds? Or am I being greedy?

Duh....

I just realized that if I want to be such a packrat, I can simply store my raw collection cards in chronological order.

Sorry to pose a question and then answer it myself.

I would, however, be interested to hear if anyone else has a more elegant solution.

You could use an office date stamp at the top of each card? My Dad used to do this with his 'day book', a kind of running log. Also a good way of reminding you to update your date stamp, if you use one...

I'm not a paper type (at the moment). If you were looking to track tasks in outlook, you could just sort them by 'completed', then chuck them all into a separate category. But I'm guessing you mean a different kind of log?

I had a really good read on this, very detail, and very useful information.
Thanks.

Some links from c2.com I always go back to:

Log Book
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LogBook

Let Your Logs Become Your Plans
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LetYourLogsBecomeYourPlans

Electronic Log Book
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ElectronicLogBook

Programmers Notebook
"A LogBook specialization."
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ProgrammersNotebook

Is Anything Better Than Paper
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?IsAnythingBetterThanPaper

and just for the heckuvit:

captain bligh's logbook ? atmitchell
http://www.atmitchell.com./journeys/history/terra/logbook.cfm