anders_CPH said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

Careful with the causal language. Two things moving together in a period when five things changed is not a mechanism, and stating it as one makes the thread less useful to somebody reading it later.

anders_CPH said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

anders_CPH has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. Yes, and the corollary is less popular: if the reasoning holds, it also holds where it produces an answer we do not like.

anders_CPH said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

Thank you — that is the clearest version of this I have read, and I have read a lot of them. I will report back once I have actually tried it.

From the other side of the consultation, briefly. Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it. The narrow version usually has an answer; the broad version usually does not, and answering the broad one is how a thread stops being useful.

Dr.GastroMayo said:

Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it.

Can confirm. Same sequence, different timescale. I had assumed I was the exception until I read this.