Artifact Mining

I just reached the eight-year mark at my current company, Differential. Hitting this milestone made me reflect on all the work I’ve done over these past eight years.

So, in a mode of reminiscing, I looked back.

While I have a lot of saved screenshots, saved documents, and working products live online, I was still missing a lot. And then I thought about my entire almost-twenty-year career of work.

There’s even more gaps.

As an organized and meticulous person, I began to sweat a little. How could I let so much slip? I’m diligent about tracking work on projects, yet here I am wondering where the history is.

It’s not just the end product. I want to see the works in progress—the early seeds of thoughts, the messy iterations, the evolution of the work. I want to see the artifacts—the tangible items that form the tapestry of work. The samples of work along the way; the snapshots of the experience; the snippets of insights.

So I built a new system. And I’ve been using it the past two weeks to establish a new process for documenting the journey. I integrated it into some of my existing workflows, and it’s unlocked deeper insights than I expected.

I call it Artifact Mining. If you, too, are interested in documenting your work along the way, and then forming a larger structure of case studies, stories, and insights, then this is for you.

Let’s dig in!

Samples

Samples are the work product—the outputs you create.

• Documents that outline the work being done.
• Messages communicated to the team.
• Code, designs, or any visuals.

No matter your role or the type of work you do, you create samples of work. And it’s not just about the fully refined version you create in the end. It’s about the evolution of that work, the refinement made over several iterations. That is the essence Artifact Mining is capturing.

Another way to think about samples is the work you’d show off in a case study or in your portfolio. What have you created that demonstrates your capabilities? Those are your samples. And showing the progress from the initial version to the end state is critical.

Here are some example samples I’ve saved recently:

• Screenshots of a new dashboard I built.
• A Linear issue I created and distilled priorities into.
• A FigJam board with a timeline to communicate priorities.

Snapshots

Snapshots are moments from the experiences around the work.

• A Slack message that captures a funny moment.
• A screenshot from a video call with your team.
• A blog post announcing a new feature.

Just like samples tell the story of the evolution of the work, the snapshots tell the story of the experience. They are moments in time that represent the story of the work. Taking time to pause and capture them is a practice in intention and reflection. Doing so allows you to acknowledge the milestones along the journey, not the constant striving for the outcome.

Here are some example snapshots I’ve saved recently:

• A screenshot of a video call where we were pairing on an issue.
• A screenshot of a funny joke in a Slack message.
• A meme the team uses as a reminder to add issues to Linear.

Snippets

Snippets are learnings surfaced from doing the work.

• A new process that made the work more efficient.
• A new tool you used to track customer issues.
• An insight you unlocked after release.

You can focus on learnings, but general thoughts and ideas also qualify as snippets. When I save an early idea as a snippet, it often evolves into a deeper learning over time. Like samples and snapshots, it’s about the evolution of the creation, not just the end result.

Here are some example snippets I’ve saved recently:

• A learning about the most effective way to transition work.
• A learning about how the path to quality is through iteration speed.
• A realization about a customer’s process and how we should handle it.

Structures

As you collect your artifacts—the samples of output, the snapshots of experiences, the snippets of learnings—you create raw material from which you can create structures. And the structures represent the higher-level units of organization that communicate the impact of your work.

1. Projects: The projects are individual units of work that make up your craft. When represented through artifacts, your projects become case studies. They not only show the output, deliverables, and impact, they communicate the journey of the work—what you learned, how you learned it, and why it was important. This is exactly what I want to capture throughout my career as I move forward and take on new challenges.
2. Stories: Humans love stories. Our love of stories is deeply intertwined with our evolution, brain chemistry, and social needs. And the only way to develop stories is through experience, which is where the snapshots come in. When I capture a snapshot each day, this is often the seed of a story that helps me understand the lesson.
3. Insights: Each thought, idea, and lesson you learn and capture as snippets will inform a larger insight. The more you collect—the more seeds you plant—the higher the yield of insights. And the insights will form the foundation of knowledge gained through experience—the wisdom you bring forward with you in all experiences.

System

While this all sounds great, how do you operationalize this? This is the exact process I’ve used to capture artifacts and form the higher-order structures:

1. Collect: Each day, take screenshots and capture artifacts on your computer. I use an application called CleanShot on macOS to do this seamlessly, but you can also just use the native tools for taking screenshots. CleanShot provides additional features like cropping, adding backgrounds, and annotating, which is immensely valuable.
2. Organize: My screenshots automatically save to an “Inbox” folder where I have three sub-folders for “→ Samples”, “→ Snapshots”, and “→ Snippets”. At the end of the day, I will organize these files with a specific naming convention to auto-organize them into the appropriate sub-folders. This is done through another application called Hazel, which allows you to watch folders and run actions on those folders.
3. Store: I move the organized files into two places: Notion and Dropbox. Notion is where I have an “Artifacts” database that connects to other related databases. So, for example, I can relate any given artifact with a Project, Story, or Insight. These are all separate databases. And then Dropbox is for long-term saving within an “Artifacts” folder.

Your Artifacts

If you get into the habit of saving your artifacts throughout the day, you will create a massive repository of the work you completed, the experiences you took part in, and the lessons you learned along the way. These artifacts, compiled together, create a rich tapestry of your professional work and craft to reflect on, share with others, and build on top of.

It’s about the journey, not the outcome. And now your turn to collect some artifacts.