Document Everything

Document everything.

No, seriously. Document everything. You think you’ll remember what you’re doing right now. You think you’ll remember exactly how machine users should be set up in AWS, because it’s so obvious, how could you possibly forget it? You think you’ll remember exactly where you’re storing that system backup configuration, and how to decrypt it, because it’s the most logical thing you ever came up with. It makes perfect sense, Future You would be an idiot to not remember that.

Newsflash: You’re going to forget. Modern society bombards us with information: tasks, projects, conversations, news, entertainment, professional development, on and on. This is not the ancestral environment, and this is not what our brains evolved to handle. Small, intricate details about something you haven’t touched for months is practically the definition of useless information, and your brain is going to purge it ruthlessly in favor of more important things like, “how much is my health insurance going to go up this time, and where am I going to find the money to pay for it?” By the time you get around to needing that information, you may remember small bits and pieces of it, but you’re not going to remember the fine details, and the devil is in the details.

And of course, none of this even begins to discuss what happens if you’re unavailable and someone else has to handle whatever it is. If you’re the only person who can do something, because you’re the only person who knows the details, congratulations! You’re now irreplaceable. You’re also unpromotable, and you absolutely can’t ever go on vacation.