> I'm a software engineer, and I've been keeping a "lab journal" on and off for the past decade or so.

I studied (a mix of EE/CS) in the EE dept., and we were actually taught to do keep such notebooks/journals, as in electronics labs were assessed on what the contents of your lab book, not on what you'd produced or measured (or at least not 'hey lab assistant look at my 'scope, see, done it' - obviously measurements would be recorded, but then the assessment's more 'why' and 'was that expected' than just a copied value from a neighbour).

I hated it at the time and wasn't particularly good at it ('writing what I'm doing just slows me down and distracts me from doing') but I've worked in software engineering since and wished I'd stuck at it. I've briefly tried in fits and bursts but never maintained it as 'this is how I work', despite having a former colleague who did.

Probably time I tried again, I agree it's worth it.