I moved to writing everything on my computer. My lab notebook is a word sheet for every project (because you always have more than one project running). Every experiment is marked basically by the same guidelines that Alan has posted. Yet, since current experiments are usually based on the older ones with new adjustments, I find it easy to cut and paste most of the sections that were not changed. Also, since most of the results you get from experiments are in electronic form, they are imbedded in the word file either as figures, excel sheets, graphs ext. You can also add a link in your word file to a folder that stores all the additional data for the experiment. And as always, don’t forget to backup.

I guess for me it started as a child and is the way I can still feel like one. I always found it exciting to be outdoors admiring the scenery, trying to learn as much as I could about things I saw around. When I grew up I could not think of anything else I wanted to do other than science. What I like about being a scientist is that you are given the chance to constantly feel young. You get to learn as much as you want. You can ask a simple question, think of a way to answer it, and then perform an experiment to find out if you are right or wrong. Sometimes when I run an experiment, I go around the lab feeling like a little boy with a chemistry set that he just got.