What a Long-Term System Has to Survive
Five things that kill multi-year records, all of them predictable. A system designed against them looks different from one designed for a fortnight.
Starting
Five things kill multi-year records and all of them are predictable. A system designed against them looks nothing like one designed for a fortnight.
5 notes
Durability Over Accuracy
A rough record kept for five years answers questions a perfect record of one month cannot. Where precision is worth its cost and where it is the thing that kills the practice.
Choosing a Format You Can Still Read in Ten Years
The single decision that determines whether a long record survives its software. Plain formats, why they win, and what to do if you prefer an application.
The Smallest System That Works
Design by subtraction. What to record, what to leave out, and why every field you add is a tax paid daily for years.
What to Decide Before the First Entry
Seven decisions that are cheap now and expensive to change in year three. Making them explicitly is most of what separates a record that lasts from one that does not.
These notes are about keeping a personal record for years rather than for a fortnight: durability beats accuracy, and a rough record kept for five years answers questions a perfect record of one month cannot. Tool guides are included as practical comparisons, while the underlying method remains independent of any single product. Nothing here is legal, tax or medical advice: requirements differ by jurisdiction and situation.