Date Everything!

Seriously, every little scrap of writing you do, write the date on it. This is a tip my mother gave me when I was in school and I sort of rolled my eyes at her. Years later, I go through my old writing archives and pull my hair out trying to figure out just when I wrote it.

Believe me, you will not regret it: Date everything you write.

I'm personally even at the point where when I am handwriting something (not so much when I am typing) and I leave off for a day and pick it up again, I'll write the date for when I picked it back up in the margins. Not to mention that I keep a writing journal and so write down when I start and finish new projects.

You will not regret it. You might even appreciate it in the future.

This is very true, because of my lack of dating I'm not sure when I came up with the idea for the novel I've been working on for years. All I know is that I was in the 7th grade when I started.

I think I dated one sheet, but I can't find it. And it's very frustrating.

I do this for all my writing, poems, songs, stories, novels, diary, I even put what time it is!

I always do this. I have notebooks full of stories that I wrote when I was in elementary school, all dated, and it's really convenient. I can compare stories from one year with the next and see how much I improved in that short amount of time.

Yeah, I've had a few of those "I'm not sure when I wrote this, but the handwriting looks a little bit like the one I had in third grade" moments.

I should start dating (heh) the works I write on computer, too, because I already date the things I write by hand.

I'm not quite understanding why you should date your work; it sounds nice and neat but I don't see why it would be worth loss of hair and brain cells.
I can possible see for longer periods of time; but does it really matter whether you wrote it in november of 06' or december? Or better yet, november tenth and november fourteenth? I never, ever know what day it is. Ever. So I just cannot see the significance. Someone enlighten me.

I mostly wrote on the computer, so I'll often look at the "date created" column in the document to see when I wrote it. I also post most of my stuff now, so that dates it rather nicely. ^^ (And everything on paper I showed my mom she made me date. xD Now it's habit)

Empress- We're not talking so much differences in months (although, since joining YWS I have seen changes in my writing over a span of months) but differences in years. I started writing when I was twelve and I'm now sixteen. It can be funny, cringe-worthy and a bit awe-inspiring to see what I wrote over the years. And it's not possible to think "Wow! I can't believe I came up with this idea when I was twelve!" if you don't date your work. (The same can be said about thinking "Oh gosh I'm glad I've gotten better since then" when looking at old works)

As for knowing if you wrote something on different days of the month, that can be useful when going through a massive spurt of creativity such as NaNo or NaPo (National Novel Writing Month [50,000 words in thirty days during November] and National Poetry Writing Month [30 poems in thirty days during April], respectively). During NaPo, I found my poems fluctuated in quality as the month went by. Having a date to each gives me an idea of what I was going through at the time and what my moods were. And after reading somebody's NaNo and getting an idea of what they were thinking of at each segment, I can semi-guess at a date. I'd like to see one, really, since, well, it'd be fun to see if I'm right.

In short-term dating of works, it's more useful to see what kinds of stories or scenes you write on what days. I know I'll write/think of more scenes when the character is weak when I'm sick, more romantic scenes when I'm lonely, and action scenes during a host of emotions. Dates then are more fun because it gives you a solid link to what you were writing and what was going on. My opinion, anyways. ^^

Great idea! I've been putting up a lot of my writing on a website which no one is ever going to look at and is purely for my own satisfaction, and I can't remember when I wrote loads of them. I love the idea of writing the time as well!

I rolled at my mum when she made me do it first as well. And ignored her of course. But after finishing up a few books I realized I really wanted to know their dates. So I started linking them to what was I doing at the moment. It got me close like "summer of 2005", "New year 2007" and so on. Now I date everything from scraps to little ideas I get on the bus. I have a journal and at every day in it I have something written.

The title mislead me. But yes, totally agree.

Hello sister mine,

As much as it pains me to say it you are quite correct.
Although I never date anything(I wish I did) I see your point.