--- title: Write Documentation for Yourself, Not Others | daily.dev description: Writing documentation feels like a chore because developers frame it as communication for others. Reframing it as notes to your future self makes it more... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/write-documentation-for-yourself-not-others-muukjhyzm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Write Documentation for Yourself, Not Others | daily.dev og:description: Writing documentation feels like a chore because developers frame it as communication for others. Reframing it as notes to your future self makes it more... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/write-documentation-for-yourself-not-others-muukjhyzm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/mUukJHYZM.png og:image:alt: Write Documentation for Yourself, Not Others og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Write Documentation for Yourself, Not Others **[Atomic Spin](https://daily.dev/sources/atomicobject)** · 5 min read · 1 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Writing documentation feels like a chore because developers frame it as communication for others. Reframing it as notes to your future self makes it more natural and useful. Key areas to document as you go include technical decisions (focusing on what would invalidate them rather than defending them), manual tasks (step-by-step so you can follow without thinking), and production support fixes. The post also emphasizes actually using your documentation to validate it, and treating good docs as a way to reduce the mental load of project ownership and enable clean handoffs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@agustinbarrientos** · 0 upvotes > I think it's more useful to document what would invalidate a decision than to spend another paragraph defending it. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Documentation Is a Product, Not an Afterthought](https://daily.dev/posts/documentation-is-a-product-not-an-afterthought-zg7sipryc) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 1 comments - [Writing Platform Documentation That Developers Actually Use](https://daily.dev/posts/writing-platform-documentation-that-developers-actually-use-bsfk640dz) · codecentric · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Use Documentation as a Marketing Tool](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-use-documentation-as-a-marketing-tool-uonwlthvy) · freeCodeCamp · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Universe of Discourse : Documentation is a message in a bottle](https://daily.dev/posts/the-universe-of-discourse-documentation-is-a-message-in-a-bottle-iegyqzvjw) · Planet Haskell · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/write-documentation-for-yourself-not-others-muukjhyzm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Write Documentation for Yourself, Not Others","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/write-documentation-for-yourself-not-others-muukjhyzm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/write-documentation-for-yourself-not-others-muukjhyzm"},"datePublished":"2026-08-05T12:02:26.182Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:52:56.490Z","description":"Writing documentation feels like a chore because developers frame it as communication for others. 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