In a Survival Situation Should You Document Everything You See and Hear?

I saw this advice offered somewhere on the net and while I see how it can be useful in some situations I see how you can document everything you hear and see if you don't have writing materials or video/audio recorder.

What do you think? Would documenting everything you see or hear give you the edge over others who don't?

 

I believe in a brief but accurate log of events!

I found that after just a week of a stressful situation my recollection of events and esp the timeline got very fuzzy!
I could remember events well but not the sequence! or names or places!
I travelled over a thousand km and through many towns but after the week was done my memories were off!
One of our group had kept a log thankfully!

 

This can be handled by keeping a diary of switching on the audio function of a phone on . In survival situations however, its not easy to keep an accurate record of what you see or hear since one is in defence mode and one's concentration is elsewhere. The advantage is that memory is heightened and if one decides to record the events in future, there would be a free flow of information from the critical faculties of the brain.

 

I, too, am a bit skeptical about the importance of documenting everything you see and hear. I mean, let's say you get caught by marauders and they find this journal. If you've got something written down about them in it,
chances are they won't be too friendly. Sure, recording information is important... but I think there's too much risk with compiling full-on documentation. A word here, a word there jotted down for mnemonic purposes
might be a bit more safe.

 

I think writing it down would only make sense if you are just experiencing with learning how to survive and are not actually in a survival mode due to an emergency situation. In the latter, you would not be able to concentrate well enough and it could bring you more trouble than you want.

 

Others have pointed out how keeping such a diary may turn against you in certain situations, and I'm not sure if documenting everything is even practical? It will take more time than you imagine, and much of these notes will be likely of no use.

 

If you're worried about someone discovering your journal, create your own shorthand. This would also save on how much you write. I don't think you need to write everything down, but a few notes can surely help. As to being too busy to write it down, I suggest writing it down as soon as you have a free moment. Have someone else help you recreate what happened to fill in the gaps. Useful information can give you an edge.

 

What's the purpose of doing This? This could be useful depending on what your doing this for. In a survival situation this kind of doesn't make since.This sounds like something an investigator would do.

 

I don't think you should document everything, but anything that seems relevant, well could be. It could be useful to know where things are, what's around what area, etc. If you know for sure an area has bears, it'd be good to remember the exact area, for example. If you know where to find fresh water, or how to get back to where you came from, where eatable food is, all useful things that you can document. You'll never know when you'll need information, and you'll be kicking yourself if you go "Damn, I wish I would have wrote down that location"

 

IMHO writing things down would be very helpful. Old Chinese proverb: " The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory." Everything might be a little excessive. Things that can be useful: what worked? what didn't work? what supplies you wish you had? what supplies you didn't need? how far were things? how long did a task take? did you use more/less supplies than planned?

There are millions of things that would be worthwhile recording and keeping. Maybe you want to leave notes for other members of your group. When you arrived someplace? What direction you are traveling? How many survivors are in the building?

It could also be a way to pass some very long, lonely nights. Record the events of the day. We keep writing utensils and paper in all of our BOB's. You may be recording history. People who ignore history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

 

The great explorers in the past would mostly be unknown were it not for the journals that they kept. A journal can serve a lot of purposes. Time gets hard to keep up with when you are not in a stable and set environment. After a few weeks, you will have a hard time placing when and where you saw something. If you return that way something that will help you remember will help you find springs again or caches.

One thing that ancient people all over the world did was build structures that helped them determine when it was time to plant and harvest and when winter was upon them. You can't do this by the weather. A warm week doesn't mean it is spring and if you plant too early you may waste irreplaceable seed.

If you are on the move a journal is your calendar. You need to know when it is time to stop traveling, gather supplies and build someplace to winter. The ability to write is one of the things that raised people up from just hand to mouth survival. Before that everything was done via oral history and a
lot got lost. Today we stand on the shoulders of giants that passed what they learned to us via writing it down. The "modern" world grew and bloomed in part because people became almost universally literate.

You don't have to write a book; just a few lines covering things that might have importance in the future and to help you keep up with the passage of time.

 

Keeping a log book is far better than depending on memory and the log may be handy long after your memory is buried with you.