December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Two brothers stand wet and frozen to the bone. Despite the conditions, they are glowing with accomplishment. They’ve done something no one else has ever done. Successfuly flying a powered aircraft (and doing it three more times for good measure). 

The race for powered flight was full of professional scientists and large interest groups. How did the Wright Brothers succeed while the competition crashed and burned? They weren’t the most qualified, both high school dropouts, with backgrounds in printing and bicycle repair. But they had some tricks up their sleeves. One of which was their detailed record keeping. They kept track of everything they learned, built, and the results of experiments. These logs allowed them to rapidly iterate and pull out insights that the competition didn’t have.

As current-day product managers, it may seem like we do not have much to learn from the Wright Brothers (unless you work at Boeing, then please try to learn everything you can from them). But we can all follow their strategy of logging what we learn and do.

I started this practice a few years ago. At the end of the day on Fridays, I write a page or so narrative of what had happened that week. I write down what went well, what wasn't so great, and what I am excited about in the next week. Over time, I learned that I wasn’t the only one with ideas around logs. I first came across a post from John Cutler where he recommended spending time each week logging what you have learned from customers.

Later, I saw Peter Yang promote the idea of writing down what you have done for customers.

I incorporated each of these questions into my weekly logging process.

If you are a typical PM you may be thinking, how do you have 30 minutes a week to spend writing? This only works because I have systemized it as much as possible. I have a recurring block on my calendar every Friday at 430pm. In the details of this calendar block, I put the links to the documents. There is one for each of my logs: what I did for customers, what I learned from customers, and my weekly reflection. When that calendar notification pops up, I put my computer on Do Not Disturb 🚫, put on my headphones 🎧, open the first doc, and start writing. I go until I am out of thoughts and then move to the next document.

These logs are nothing fancy. I use a plain Google Doc for each one. At the top there’s a title and a prompt. And then each week, I add the date and my thoughts. That’s it. Simple and easy to set up, even easier to use.

Let’s look at each one in a bit more detail. (I’ve included some AI-generated examples).

Have you ever had that moment where a customer says something brilliant, and you think, "I'll definitely remember that!" Fast forward a week, and it's gone. This is where you put those insights so they don’t get lost. By documenting what you learn from customers each week, you're creating a repository of information that can inform product decisions, shape roadmaps, and predict future trends.

It's easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind and lose sight of the bigger picture. By logging what you did for customers each week, you're creating a tangible record of your impact. This is great for motivation, it's an instant boost when feeling unproductive. It's also invaluable for preparing for customer interactions, performance reviews, and portfolio building.

I recommend using specific metrics and outcomes where it makes sense. Instead of "Helped customer X with onboarding," try "Reduced customer X's onboarding time from 2 weeks to 3 days, resulting in a 40% increase in user adoption." But the key is to get things on paper, so use whatever format makes the most sense to you.

There is much to be learned from reflecting on what you have done. Storing that information for later allows you to clear up space in your mind while retaining the value of the insights. Also, thinking through things again helps you to catch stuff that may have initially slipped by. When I started this, I wrote a long-form narrative with no real structure. For the most part that is still true. But after hearing Kevin Yien talk about documenting decisions, I have added structure for decisions. 

When writing down your decisions I recommend a format like this:

Decision: Implement feature X

Prediction: This will increase user engagement by 20% within 3 months

Rationale: Based on customer feedback and competitor analysis

Risks: Potential increase in server load, learning curve for existing users

Follow-up date: [3 months from now]

Aside from the specificity of decisions, I let the thoughts flow out with no structure until my brain is empty. It can be a lot of content to go back and review. The decision formatting helps those to stick out. And cmd+f is your friend when you need to go back in time for specific thoughts.

Should we talk about AI? It’s 2024, so we have to talk about AI. LLMs were the last thing on my mind when I started creating these logs. But I now see these as an incredible application of AI. Throwing any of these logs into your favorite AI tool could reveal some insights or trends that you missed. They can also be a great jumping-off point for new ideas. Here’s an example of what Claude came up with when I shared some of these sample logs with it.

Maybe I didn’t persuade you, that makes sense, I wouldn’t trust me either. And perhaps you’re not convinced by the Wright Brothers' success. But there is a lot to be gained as a PM in following a practice like this. Give it a try and let me know if it helps you as much as it has helped me. With that, I will leave you with the words of our greatest philosopher, Ferris Bueller. As he once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”