Writing down what time it is, what you did, and what’s next
Captain’s Log (or “Temporal Journaling” or or “Interstitial Journaling”) is a time-tracking productivity technique for being more mindful of your usage of time & for giving yourself a “game tape” to review in the execution of your knowledge work (like someone watching themselves play sports to see how they could be better).
You make an entry when you change tasks, take a break, or get distracted and include the time, what happened, and what’s next.
Example:
08:30 started day. Next: triage email.
9:15 distracted by captains log thoughts, next: reading article
10:17 wrote Captain's Log note. Next: finish email triage
Source
Captain’s Logs for Navigating Knowledge Work