I really only find it useful when I'm investigating or troubleshooting some system I'm not familiar with.

A stupid yet accurate analogy is I turn up the log level for my brain lol

It's basically just a log file of everything I did and the result so I can pick it back up later, plus I include timestamps which helps me realize when I'm spinning my wheels for too long.

For building stuff, scribbling diagrams and flows is more useful if I need to work out something complex.