My notebook is full.
Last night I flipped to the last page. It had a client's specs from last week—yarn blend, knitting density, color codes. My handwriting was messy. I realized there was no room left. I flipped back to the beginning. The earliest entry was from 2020.
From 2020 until now—three years' worth of process parameters, color records, problem notes. All in this one notebook. Some pages are dog-eared. Some have coffee stains. A few were rewritten so many times the ink overlaps. A couple of pages fell out. I taped them back in.
Old Zhang keeps telling me: "Just digitize it. Easier to search." I never reply. Digital is easier to search, sure. But what's in this notebook isn't just what I wrote down. It's what I did. When I flip to a certain page, I remember what happened that day—what went wrong with the machine, how many times I had to adjust it, what finally fixed it. That's not something data can capture.
I already have a new notebook ready. Same place—second drawer on the left. Different color, though. The old one was brown. This one's navy blue. In another three or four years, this one will be full too.
Work goes on.