The bird walks merrily along the path of disasters, without foreseeing any consequences from this.

(Find the original, read, suggest the best name, close to the original, then you will minus - np).
I recently concluded that I was a careless, mischievous engineer. I deserve serious punishment because I have neglected my journal for notes.

It's my fault. There is no one whom I could blame, I am guilty myself. They demanded that I keep a journal while studying at the university (we called it “Work Experience Journal” -pp). Later, when I began my first job as a member of the computer-aided design team of a central processing unit (CPU), my mentor, Dave Potts, explained to me the advantages of including the smallest details in my journal.

I have been a good boy for many years, using a magazine to record my thoughts and engineering decisions (including reflecting both the choices made and those that were rejected). My journals abounded with hand-drawn diagrams and mechanical diagrams, interspersed with descriptions of experiments and tables of results. I was stuck with the understanding of the need to keep track of situations when something turns out differently than I expected and a firm belief in the obligation to record unexpected or unexplained results (there are no unexplained results, there are unexplained -app). The idea was that you never know in advance whether anything that seems irrelevant at the moment is unusually important in the future, and that understanding the reasons for your failures is no less significant than fixing your successes.

However, over the years, as I began to write more and more about engineering, rather than directly engage in development, I began to neglect my journal and lost the habit of writing. I hung my head in shame.
')
More recently, my lack of a logbook habit, in the process of working on hobby projects such as Vetinari Clock, my BADASS Display, and my Beloved Prediction Machine (Inamorata Prognostication Engine) returned to me like a boomerang to hurt me.

“Why did I end up with this particular nominal and type of capacitor?” I ask myself. Was his choice based on a thoughtful and motivated decision, or was it just turned out to be the closest value I could find at that time. (It's sad to admit, but we will never know the answer to this puzzle). “After all, there was an Internet resource that contained all the useful information about calculating the date of the next full and blue moon,” I mumble to myself. And so on. (Sometimes the situation resembles a scene from a famous film - “What kind of refinement is it? Who made it? I did it? Oh, yes, I did.” - nn)

Just last weekend, I remembered the little things related to the 5V power regulator, which is not bad in terms of efficiency. I would like to purchase a couple more for new projects, but where did I get this unit from? Was it Allied Electronics or Digi-Key or Mouser or Newark or ... (ten years ago it was much easier for me, Mitino, and now there are options too -pp)? And what was the catalog number of this little device? If I only wrote down all these things in my journal (if only I had a journal in which I could write them down).

The result was that I ran into a local store during lunch to buy a new magazine. From now on, I will live with my journal, and I will write down in it everything that should be written.

Are you still pointing out the need to use the journal at the university? I certainly hope so. In fact, I just found this video of Dr. Donald Egler, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Idaho, who explains his recommendations and the model of using the magazine (see the original, there is a link to -pp).

What about you? Have you always walked the beaten track of the logbook, or have you succumbed to the temptation of laziness, like your humble servant? Do not be afraid, because even if you wandered into the gullies, you still have hope - to buy a new magazine at the first opportunity and go to the bright side of power.