How to reconstruct what you worked on yesterday

To reconstruct yesterday’s work, collect the records you already have, arrange them by project and check the sources behind each conclusion. Your calendar shows plans. Documents and messages show some outcomes. Recorded activity can help fill in context, with gaps and limitations of its own.

The goal is a useful account you can check, especially when a busy day felt fragmented.

Start with a rough outline

Open your calendar and task list for the date. Write down planned meetings, the projects you intended to work on and anything you remember finishing. Treat these as clues: a scheduled meeting does not establish attendance, and an unchecked task might still have progressed.

Look at relevant project notes, sent messages and documents. A changed file timestamp can point to a useful source, but it does not explain what changed or who made the change. Check the document or its version history when that distinction matters.

Use recorded activity to recover context

If CiteSilo was recording during that day, review the activity and available captured sources. Window titles, extracted screen text and retained screenshots may help you connect a period of work to a project.

For example, a title referencing a booking-page brief could help you identify a research period. Open the relevant source before concluding that the brief was edited or that the task was completed. The same application can be used for several projects.

Periods with capture disabled, excluded apps or missing records should remain gaps. It is better to mark a period as uncertain than to invent a neat account of the day.

Group evidence by project

In CiteSilo’s Today → Projects and activity, you can create a project and tag recorded activities. If you enable Show estimated activity duration, the panel displays estimates and project totals. You can correct an estimate when you have better information.

Treat durations as estimates. Recording gaps, idle detection and context switching affect them. They are not verified billable hours. Review your actual records and agreement before using any activity tool to support an invoice.

Generate a report, then review it

Version 0.1.7 offers Local mode for counted reports and source excerpts without a cloud API key. In Settings, choose Who writes your reports → Local mode, no API key required, save, then generate a report for the recorded day.

An optional cloud provider or separately installed compatible Ollama model can write interpretive summaries. Check an AI-written summary against the available evidence, particularly claims about decisions, completion or who did something. Read the local and cloud processing details before choosing a provider.

Turn the evidence into a useful handover

A concise workday note can use these four prompts:

• Worked on: the project and the activity you can support.
• Result: the document, decision or change you verified.
• Uncertain: missing context, unresolved questions or incomplete work.
• Next: the specific action that will help you resume.

For example: “Reviewed the booking-page brief; found two questions about reminders; no implementation confirmed; next step is to clarify reminder timing.” That note distinguishes research from a finished feature.

At the end of the week, use the same method to review patterns across several days. Explore the CiteSilo workflow, or request free beta access to try it with your own work.