To retain knowledge and my considerations for my future self and teammembers I create a document before each major task and update it during the task. The headings are: Goal (why are we doing this), Crux (what is the most important consideration, what will make the biggest difference), Current situation (where are we now), Steps (what needs to be done or what is done to reach the goal. The steps can contain specific details on how to get the step done) and Learnings (what did we learn, what are key insights). The files are named YYYY MM DD Taskname. Looking at the directory gives a sense of history. It’s a delight to find a document like this when doing the same task a year later. It also helps to delegate tasks to other teammembers.
This! This is the way! I envy your coworkers. This practice is also one of the things that help me overcome chronic procrastination. For every project/feature/bugfix/etc.. I start with such a document in which I try to pin down exactly that. The goals (and explicitly calling out non-goals to fight off Feature Creep Frank[1] from the get go), the whys and the hows. The hows should be as detailed as possible. The hows/whys may be getting updated (with history, for this, I just strike through and add a date for the change, nothing fancy like revision history in the storage media). And whenever I feel like slacking off, the detailed tasks in these documents offer me a way out of a rut.
