Read Their Journal
Employees keep a structured journal of what they have done, learned, and decided. Personal entries stay private. Team entries are shared with teammates.
TL;DR
Every time an employee finishes meaningful work, they write a journal entry. Entries have a category (what kind of note) and a scope (personal or team). You can read an employee's journal from their Drive tab. You can read the team's journal from the team's Drive tab. Team journal entries are automatically shared with all teammates so they stay coordinated.
What is the Journal?
The journal is an employee's structured log of their work. Think of it as their notebook. After completing something meaningful, the employee writes a short entry describing what they did.
Each entry has:
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Category | What kind of entry: task completed, observation, decision, blocker, learning, or handoff |
| Scope | Who can see it: personal (just you and the employee) or team (shared with all teammates) |
| Timestamp | When the entry was written |
| Content | What the employee wrote |
Employees journal automatically. You do not need to ask them. Every employee gets a "Take Notes" responsibility on hire that ensures they document their work.
Personal Journal vs. Team Journal
There is one journal feature with two scopes:
| Scope | Where to find it | Who can see it | What goes here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | Employee's Drive tab | You and the employee | Execution summaries, individual task completions, personal observations |
| Team | Team's Drive tab | You and all team members | Milestones, decisions that affect the team, handoffs between members, shared learnings |
When an employee writes a team-scoped entry, it automatically appears in two places: their personal journal (under Drive) and the Team Journal (under the team's Drive tab).
Team awareness. Recent team journal entries are injected into every team member's system prompt. This means employees know what their teammates have been working on and can avoid duplicating effort.
Where to Find It
| Location | What you see | How to get there |
|---|---|---|
| Employee's Drive tab | All of that employee's journal entries (personal and team) | Workspace, select employee, click Drive tab |
| Team's Drive tab | All team-scoped entries from every team member | Workspace, select team, click Drive tab |
| Company's Drive tab | All entries across the company | Workspace, click Organization, click Drive tab |
Entries are grouped by date, newest first. Each entry shows the category, content, and (in the team view) which employee wrote it.
What You Can Do
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Read the journal | Go to the employee's or team's Drive tab |
| Edit an entry | Click "Edit" on any entry in the employee's Drive tab |
| Ask for a note | Tell the employee "make a note about this for the team" |
| Ask for a personal note | Tell the employee "note this for yourself" |
| Browse by date | Entries are grouped by date, scroll to browse |
How to Set It Up
Nothing to do. Journaling is automatic. Every employee journals thanks to the "Take Notes" responsibility they receive on hire. Open the Drive tab to start reading.
Tips & Tricks
- Review weekly. Check journals to stay on top of what employees are accomplishing without reading every chat
- Ask for team notes. Tell the employee "make a note about this for the team" and they will write a team-scoped entry visible to all teammates
- Use for handoffs. When one employee hands off work to another, the "handoff" category entry provides context for the receiving employee
- Compare with activity. The journal gives high-level summaries of what happened. Activity gives the raw step-by-step detail. Both are complementary
- Check what the team knows. Team journal entries are in every member's prompt. If you want the whole team to know something, have one member note it
Good to Know
- Journal vs. Activity. The journal is a high-level summary written by the employee after work. Activity is the raw, real-time feed of every action during work
- Append-only for employees. Employees can only add entries, never edit or delete them. You can edit entries from the Drive tab
- Always on. Employees journal automatically. You do not need to remind them
- Stored permanently. All entries are stored permanently. The Drive tab shows recent entries by default
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I ask the employee to journal about something specific? A: Yes. Ask them to take a note with a specific scope. "Make a note about this decision for the team" creates a team-scoped entry with the "decision" category.
Q: Is the journal shared with teammates? A: Only team-scoped entries. Personal entries are visible only to you and the employee. Team entries appear on the team's Drive tab and are injected into every teammate's prompt.
Q: Can the employee edit or delete journal entries? A: No. The journal is append-only for employees. Only you can edit entries from the Drive tab. No one can delete entries.
Q: What are the six categories? A: task_completed (finished work), observation (something noticed), decision (choice made), blocker (something stuck), learning (lesson learned), and handoff (work passed to someone else).
Q: Do scheduled tasks create journal entries? A: Yes. Scheduled work is journaled the same way as any other work.
Q: Can team members see each other's personal journals? A: No. Personal entries are visible only to the employee and you. Only team-scoped entries are shared.
Q: How does the team stay coordinated through the journal? A: Team journal entries are automatically injected into every team member's system prompt. They do not need to read the journal manually, they already know what teammates have been doing.