Billing From a Multi-Year Record
When the record is also the invoice, the requirements change. What a defensible long record looks like and what it lets you do that a short one cannot.
What it is for
The uses that justify the maintenance, including the one people least anticipate and most value.
7 notes
Estimating From Your Own History
The highest-value output of a long record. Building and using a comparison set, and why it beats any adjusted estimate.
Proving Time Worked
A record kept for yourself occasionally has to serve as evidence. What makes one credible, and what to do before you need it.
Health, Energy and Long Patterns
What a multi-year record can honestly show about how you function, where it misleads, and the point at which the answer is a doctor rather than a spreadsheet.
Study and Skill Acquisition Over Years
Hours are a poor measure of learning and a good measure of exposure. What a multi-year record shows about getting better at something.
Career Decisions From Your Own Data
What a multi-year record can tell you about a job, a direction or a change, and the questions it answers better than reflection does.
The Record as Memory
The use that has nothing to do with analysis, is rarely the stated reason for starting, and is why people keep these records for decades.
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.