Lab Notebooks | Sam Bleckley

In college I worked as a developer in several science labs, 
including a chemistry lab. Even us computational folks were 
told to keep lab notebooks, and the protocols for your lab 
notebook were quite strict. At the time, I was not very good 
at using my notebook (or at doing the science, frankly). Over 
the intervening years, I’ve come to understand and value 
what they were for; and now I keep lab books for almost all 
my software engineering work.

What’s a lab notebook?

It’s a disciplined record of what you do and think each day.

One of the hardest things about software engineering is 
that, while it’s often possible to understand the code you 
committed, it’s usually impossible to see all the things you 
tried first, that didn’t work. This is a trap for other developers, 
and even your future self, where a seemingly better solution 
gets tried again and again, and each time the same problem 
arises. But since the failure never gets committed, no record 
of the attempt is left. I suspect most experienced developers 
can remember a time where their memory saved a team hours 
or even weeks of work, simply by saying “ah, we tried [clever 
solution] a few years ago, but ran into problems X, Y, and Z. 
So we’d need to solve those problems before we try again.”

A lab notebook takes that kind of information out of your 
memory and puts it somewhere safe and permanent.

Also, too many developers rely on their working memory, and 
end up burning out because they are afraid to leave a problem 
halfway. If the entire plan of attack exists only in your head, 
taking a lunch break can be disastrous.

A lab notebook makes it safe to stop work at any time.

As a consultant, it’s perfectly possible for old client to call me 
up and ask for advice, or an explanation of something I did for 
them. It’s no fun for anyone to say “sorry, I’ve worked on 5 
other client projects since then, I have no memory of what I 
was doing.” On the other hand, it feels great to roll over to my 
bookshelf, grab the notebook associated with that client, and 
find a detailed explanation of what I did and why.

In a meeting, writing in a notebook is socially more graceful 
than typing on a laptop. On a laptop, you might be answering 
email, or on facebook, or backchannel-chatting.

A paper notebook is a way of signalling you’re present and list-
ening.

Finally, and least compelling, the Eudaimonia Machine office 
design gets some attention from design and tech people every 
few months. Few people really discuss what goes in the library/
archive room of the machine. One answer: your old lab note-
books.

What are the rules?

I said there was a lot of discipline associated with a lab note-
book. This is in part for forensics. If plagiarism/data falsifica-
tion/ethics/etc concerns arise over some scientist’s research, 
the lab notebook can be valuable exonerating evidence — but 
only if the discipline is kept.

Software engineering doesn’t have quite the same forensic 
constraints, but the same disciplines have nevertheless been 
valuable for me. Here are some of the major points:

• Always in pen.

  Your goal is not to preserve the outcome of your thoughts 
  — that’s your code. Your goal is to preserve the process 
  of your thoughts. So no erasing, no blacking out. You can 
  put a single line through anything spelled or written incor-
  rectly.

• Always during

  Write down what the problem is, what you’re about to do, 
  and what you expect the result to be. Treat your work 
  as an experiment! This is especially valuable for junior 
  developers who are still in a “try everything until somet-
  hing works” frame of mind. Forcing yourself to hypothe-
  size what’s actually wrong is really valuable; and there’s 
  nothing wrong with expecting a negative result (“I don’t 
  think the problem is X, but it’s easy to prove it, so…”)

  If during the actual process, you deviate from your 
  written plan, write down the deviation, and why you’re 
  doing so.

  Don’t wait until after you’re “done” — because “done” 
  might mean six hours from now.

• Always forward.

  If you write something on Monday and realize you were 
  wrong on Tuesday, write the correction in Tuesday’s 
  entry. This is a lab journal — from the French “daily”. If 
  you had a misconception, you want a record of that, as 
  well as a record of why you were wrong. You can (and 
  should) add a small note to the original entry pointing to 
  the page where you correct yourself — but don’t obscure 
  what you originally wrote.

• Keep a table of contents

  The first pages of your notebook should be a table of cont-
  ents; with a few words summarizing what is on each page. 
  Make it easy to answer questions about what you did, and 
  why, even if years have passed.

• Keep a habit

  At the start of each day, read yesterday’s pages. Write 
  down what you intend to do today. At the end of each day, 
  read through today’s pages, and add an entry to your table 
  of contents.

• Summarize when necessary

  If you’ve spent a messy week going round in circles, and 
  you lab notebook has become hard to follow, feel free to 
  take a page to summarize what you’ve learned and where 
  you ended up. Flag it specially in your table of contents.

• Store safely

  At the end of a project, label the spine of your notebook, 
  and store it safely with your others. It should be easy to 
  access if questions ever come up.

These aren’t all the guidelines — pick a research university 
and I guarantee they’ll have some multi-page document 
explaining all the protocols surrounding your lab notebook 
— but these are the ones that have stuck with me.

What notebook should I use?

I use full-size gridded notebooks from Vela. They’re made 
locally, and specifically designed for use as lab notebooks, 
so they have page numbers, page titles and dates, tables of 
contents, and so on all built-in; they make keeping the above 
disciplines easy. Vela also sell notebooks covered in material 
designed for use in wet labs; if you’re a clumsy person, an 
extra few dollars can make your coffee spill no big deal.

They’re expensive, but I rarely use more than one per client, 
and I’m confident they’ve been worth it every time.

(I have no relationship to Vela; I-just-think-theyre-neat.gif)

Isn’t this just a bullet journal? Isn’t this just a planner? Etc.

Sure, do whatever works for you. I call it a lab notebook.