Categories That Age Well
The divisions you choose in year one determine what the record can answer in year five. Which kinds survive a changing life and which do not.
Structure
The divisions chosen in year one determine what the record can answer in year five, and changing them later is either impossible or a project.
6 notes
Category Drift and How to Spot It
The same label meaning something different in year three. The most damaging failure in long records because it is invisible and it corrupts comparison.
Renaming Without Breaking History
Categories have to change over a long record. How to change them so that the years either side remain comparable.
Granularity You Can Sustain
How finely to divide the day. The choice is not about precision but about how many decisions you are willing to make every day for years.
Tags, Projects and the Difference
Two structures that look similar and behave differently over years. Using them for the wrong thing is what makes old records hard to query.
Notes Alongside Numbers
The field people leave out and later wish they had kept. What makes a five-year record readable rather than merely queryable.
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.