The instinct is to write things down when something goes wrong. A late handover, a cancelled weekend, a message that crossed a line: those are the moments you reach for a notebook.
That instinct builds the weakest kind of log.
Why problem-only logs fail
A log that only contains problems looks selective. A log that contains everything looks like a record.
Picture someone reading your log for the first time, someone who doesn't know you and doesn't yet trust either parent. If every entry is a complaint, they have no way of knowing what proportion of contact those complaints represent. Was it three bad handovers out of five, or three out of a hundred? They'll assume you've chosen what to show them, because, in effect, you have.
And you will be asked: "Did you log the times it went well?"
"No" is a bad answer. It's also the honest one, if you didn't.
Contact that goes fine is still data
This is the part people miss. The uneventful entries aren't padding. They're what makes a pattern visible.
Without the normal, there's nothing for the outliers to stand out against. Forty rows of "collected as arranged" make the five rows where it didn't happen mean something. They turn "it keeps happening" into "it happened on 5 of the last 45 scheduled handovers," which is specific, checkable and far harder to dismiss.
They also protect you. A complete log shows the weeks when things improved, and an honest record that includes the good stretches is more believable on the bad ones.
One row, every time
Keep it the same every time so it takes no thought:
- Date
- Scheduled hours: what should have happened, according to the arrangement
- Hours that happened: what actually did
- What changed, if anything
- Who initiated it
- Reason given, in their words where you have them, not your interpretation
- Source: the message, email or note that shows it
On a good day, most of those columns are one word long. "Collected as arranged, 6pm, no change." Two minutes, including the uneventful ones.
Keep it neutral
Write each row as if a stranger will read it, because one might. Record what happened, not what you think it meant:
- "Handover moved from 6pm to 7.30pm by message at 5.20pm. Reason given: traffic." Good.
- "Typical last-minute change to mess me around." Not good, however true it feels.
Your conclusions can come later, once the pattern is there for everyone to see. The log's job is to be something nobody can argue with, only check.
Same place, every time
Pick one place, whether a printed sheet, a spreadsheet or a notebook, and use only that. A log split across your phone's notes app, a diary and the back of an envelope isn't a log. It's three partial memories.
Write it the same day if you can. An entry made that evening is worth far more than one reconstructed weeks later, and it's much easier to stand behind if anyone asks when you wrote it.
Start today
Don't wait for something worth recording. Nobody feels like opening a spreadsheet on a day that went well, and that's exactly why so few people have a log that stands up.
The entries you'll be most glad of are almost never the dramatic ones. They're the eighty unremarkable rows underneath that make the dramatic ones believable.
Start today, even if today was fine. Especially if today was fine.
General information, not legal advice. Court process differs between countries and regions; check anything that matters to your case with a qualified lawyer where you live.
Worksheet A in the workbook is this log, ready to print, with a period summary underneath. The workbook + spreadsheet version adds up scheduled and actual hours for you, so your monthly and quarterly totals can never drift out of step with the rows.
See the workbook & spreadsheet