Every day, right before shutting down my laptop, I write one sentence.
- Not a summary.
- Not a to-do list.
- Not a commit message.
Just this question:
What would future me need to know?
Then I answer it in a single sentence.
This habit didn’t make me faster. It didn’t magically improve my productivity. It didn’t help me ship more features.
What it did was quieter, and more lasting.
It made me calmer.
Over time, my code became easier to return to. My thinking became more deliberate. And the mental friction I used to feel when reopening an old project slowly disappeared.
Slowing down at the end of the day
Like most developers, I used to end my workdays abruptly.
Finish a task. Push a commit. Close the laptop.
Whatever context was in my head stayed there—fragile, temporary, and assumed to be obvious later. I trusted that future me would “figure it out.”
Future me almost never did.
A week later, I’d open the same file and feel that familiar confusion:
Why did I do this this way?
Was this intentional or accidental?
What problem was I solving again?
That confusion wasn’t about complexity. It was about missing context.
The habit started as a small attempt to fix that—not by documenting everything, but by leaving a breadcrumb.
Why this works
Writing forces clarity.
When you know you’ll need to explain something—even to yourself—you naturally organize your thinking better in the moment. Decisions become more explicit. Tradeoffs become conscious instead of accidental.
This isn’t about detailed documentation or exhaustive notes. It’s about capturing the reasoning that will evaporate over time.
The “why” is always the first thing to go.
Three months from now, the code might still be readable. The logic might still make sense. But the motivation—the constraints, the alternatives you considered, the thing you intentionally didn’t do—that’s what disappears.
One sentence is often enough to preserve it.
What I actually write
The rule is simple: keep it short.
Most days, it’s one sentence. Occasionally two. Never more than that.
What matters is what I choose to capture.
Usually it falls into one of three categories:
Context I’ll forget “Chose library X over Y because Y breaks on edge case Z.”
Tradeoffs I made intentionally “Skipped optimization here—data size is small and readability matters more.”
The next logical step “If this grows, consider extracting into a separate module.”
These aren’t instructions. They’re reminders. Just enough information to jog my memory and restore the mental state I was in when I wrote the code.
The unexpected benefit
I thought this habit would only help future me.
It turns out it changed how I work during the day.
Knowing that I’ll need to summarize my work later makes me more intentional about what I’m building and why. I catch myself asking better questions mid-task:
Can I explain this decision clearly?
Is this complexity actually necessary?
What would confuse me later?
It’s like having a quiet conversation with future me running in the background. That conversation gently shapes my decisions without adding pressure.
Present me codes better because future me is listening.
A different relationship with progress
This habit also changed how progress feels.
Instead of ending the day with a vague sense of “I did stuff,” I end it with a clear handoff. A small closure ritual. One sentence that says: this mattered, and here’s why.
That steadiness adds up.
Returning to old projects no longer feels like starting over. There’s continuity. A sense that past me was paying attention—and cared enough to leave a note.
How to start
There’s no setup required.
- Before closing your editor, open a notes file
- Ask one question: What would future me need to know?
- Answer it honestly
- Close your laptop
That’s it.
No fancy system. No special tools. No obligation to be consistent beyond today.
Just one sentence, written daily.
The habit compounds—not in speed, but in clarity. And clarity, over time, is what makes development feel sustainable.
Your future self will thank you.