Lab-notebook habits that actually survive a busy week

Curious how people keep records. Mine, after a few painful lessons:

One line per vial when it arrives: compound, batch, COA link, arrival date, storage location.

A second line the moment a stock is reconstituted: diluent, volume, concentration, date.

Date everything. Future-you is a stranger.

What's the one record-keeping rule you wish you'd adopted earlier?

Mine: never use an abbreviation you wouldn't recognise in six months. "Recon 5/4" meant nothing to me by July.

Started dating everything after "Recon 5/4" haunted me for a month. The 4th? April? Four mL? Nobody knows. Future-me is, to this day, furious.

The rule I wish I'd adopted earlier: write the SOP step before you do it, not after. Past-me documented from memory at the end of the day and past-me was a liar.

Two physical labels per vial, and the notebook line references both. Redundant on purpose. Saved me when a printed label smudged in the freezer.

Record-keeping rule I learned the expensive way: "I'll remember" is the single most costly sentence in science. I did not remember. I never remember. Write it down.

I have a spreadsheet for the spreadsheets, a notebook for the spreadsheet, and a sticky note for the notebook. The actual data is in there somewhere. It's a system. It's MY system.

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