There is a scene in the movie Weird Science where the main character looks up something in his so-called 'log'. "You keep a diary!?", the other geek asks. "No, of course not! Teenage girls keep a diary, I keep a log". Here's why you should too.
The book the "Artist's Way at Work" by Mark Bryan, Julia Cameron, and Catherine Allen offers an approach called "morning pages" that is similar to a log but helps to overcome writers block (as well as act as a refinery for written pieces still percolating). Some references:<p><a href="http://www.artistswayatwork.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.artistswayatwork.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688166350" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688166350</a><p><a href="http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id3.html" rel="nofollow">http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id3.html</a><p>although the book encourages you to write them in longhand I found that typing on a laptop in a coffee shop or library or anywhere that was different from where I normally worked (to break association with work space) worked for me.