LabSanity #2: What I Wish I Knew About Lab Notebooks

You know that sinking feeling when you open your lab notebook and see that your last entry was two months ago? But you don’t have time to write it down, because you’ve got a new experiment to run?

Yeah, me too. I also remember that time my grad school supervisor told us all that she’d be checking our notebooks — for the first time ever — cue spending the weekend literally crying as I tried to piece the napkin scraps from my drawers and lab meeting powerpoints into something that looked like a lab notebook. Never again.

Here's what I wish someone had told me about lab notebooks in year 1:

The biggest game-changer wasn't about ‘being more organized’ or having better handwriting or switching to electronic notebooks.

It was a mindset shift: It's better to write scraps of what you can NOW, than to put off writing for even 5 minutes.

Here's my actual system that stuck:

The Glove Drawer Trick

I put my notebook in my drawer on top of my box of gloves. Sounds silly, but it means I physically have to take out my notebook before I can start lab work. No more "I'll write it down later" (we all know how that ends).

The Plan/Reality Split

Before starting lab work, I draw a vertical line down the center of the page

Left side: I jot down a numbered list of steps I'll do (I write what I'm going to do before I do it — this is key!)

Right side: space for me to leave real-time comments about what actually happened, did it work, anything weird, anything different

Time-Stamp Your Notebook

I write down the actual clock time for as many steps as I can. Example: I will write ‘2:06 pm’ beside ‘step 1: inoculate day cultures’.

If you miss doing this for a step or two, shake it off and keep going. Write down the next one. ANY times you can capture will be helpful. This seems tedious but it's a gift to future-you. Next time you do the experiment, you can quickly gauge how long that set of steps will actually take. No more "quick 2-hour experiment" turning into an all-day ordeal.

Add Page Numbers

If your notebook doesn't have page numbers (my current lab just has standard five-star books), do the work of putting numbers on early. If you haven't yet, at least reference dates ("done on Sep 3"). But it gets hard once you're too far in. If you can, buy a notebook with page numbers already in it.

Leave Yourself A Page Number Trail

I like to number notebooks (book 1, book 2) and pages, and reference other page numbers whenever I can. And I make a note at the bottom of each page which page it continues on.

How this works:

If you start a new experiment, start a new page (on the very next page) and give it a title. Don’t leave blank pages. Next time you continue the first experiment, go back and add it to the original page (assuming it wasn’t filled — don’t leave empty spaces!).

Multiple concurrent experiments is normal - this is why you need to tell yourself at the end of the page, which page THAT experiment continues on.

E.g. Project A is on page 1-2 and part of page 3. Project B on page 4-6. Next time you work on Project A, go back to page 3 and keep going from there. Then go to page 7 and continue it there. At the end of page 3, write ‘continued on page 7’. At the top of page 7, write ‘continued from page 3’.

It sounds confusing but it’s the simplest, and lets you never have blank pages or worry about estimating how many pages you’ll need for a given experiment.

Other little tips

I try to write as clearly as I can. Err on the side of writing less, but legibly.

Put a short "purpose" (title) at the top. Can be very simple: ‘Pseudomonas phage XYZ titre’. Better than nothing.

Use the table of contents!!! (If your notebook has one). If it doesn’t, leave a few pages at the front of the book and make your own (this is the only time I condone leaving blank pages)

Here’s a tweet thread I wrote about this system — many people have added their tips to it — check it out!

Stop Worrying About Being Comprehensive

Here's the real secret: I stopped worrying about missing things. Anything - ANYTHING - that causes you to put off writing means you'll end up not writing at all. Your notebook needs to be a scratch pad, not a pristine record.

So if you forget to write something down, don’t let that stop you from recording the next thing. Leave yourself a note like ‘didn’t record this part’. It’s better than letting it make you put things off.

Do this until you develop the habit of working slowly enough that your documentation time is built into the work, in real time. In other words maybe a PCR takes 1 hour to set up, not 10 mins, if you document it properly. So be it.

Remember: Perfect is the enemy of getting anything done. A messy but consistent notebook is worth infinitely more than a perfect but empty one. And the fastest experiment is one you do NOT have to repeat because you didn’t write it down in the first place.