Motivation
Long projects accumulate decisions that feel obvious while they are happening and mysterious a month later. Field Notes explored whether a lightweight stream of observations could preserve enough context to make returning easier.
What I tried
I used short, dated Markdown entries linked to a project. Each entry captured one decision, surprise, failure, or unresolved question. The constraint was that a note should take less than ten minutes to publish.
What worked
Short notes were good at preserving technical discoveries and changes of direction. They were especially useful when they included a screenshot or the rejected alternative.
Why it became dormant
The habit depended too much on remembering to leave the tool I was already using. The content model was sound; the capture moment was not. Rather than build an inbox or integration prematurely, I paused the project and kept the useful parts in this site’s Log format.
What remains
The question is still alive: what is the smallest interruption that can preserve the context of a decision?