Museum of Proof
It’s frustrating: you work hard, ship daily, but a month later, it all feels like it never happened. Doubt creeps in, and progress seems invisible. Without visible proof, motivation fades and decisions stall.
Why You Need a Museum
You think you will remember the wins. You won’t. The way out is a simple evidence system: a museum of proof you can scan in a minute. When proof is visible, doubt quiets down and decisions get easier. You see what mattered. You see what didn’t. You choose the next slice with a clear head.
Curate, Don’t Hoard
Collect artifacts like a curator, not a hoarder. These belong in the gallery:
- Screenshots
- Short demo clips
- Relevant commit diffs that change what users see
- Small numbers like click counts or signups
- Quotes from users
Each piece gets a date, one sentence of context, and a link if there is one. No long narratives. No multi‑page postmortems. Your future self needs to scan, not study.
Keep It Simple
Keep everything in one place. A single document with dated entries works. A folder with a file per day works. A simple note in your favorite app works. Pick the lightest tool you will actually use. The system fails when capture takes effort. It succeeds when adding proof takes less than a minute.
Use Tags to Spot Patterns
Organize with tags you care about, such as:
- discovery
- activation
- revenue
- retention
Over time these tags reveal where you’ve spent energy and what produced movement. They also help you assemble quick reels for a demo or an update. A “discovery” tag lets you pull three clips that show how messaging evolved. An “activation” tag pulls before/after screenshots that make your weekly progress obvious.
Weekly Highlight Reel
Build a highlight reel every Friday. Copy two or three artifacts into a short post for yourself, your partner, or your community. Include:
- One line on what you learned
- One line on what you will try next
The reel multiplies the value of proof: it informs, motivates, and sets up the next ask. It also trains you to think in terms of visible outcomes.
Borrow User Language
The museum becomes a library of phrases. User quotes contain language you should borrow. Copy them onto your landing, into your product, and into your outreach. The more you speak in your users’ words, the faster your messages land and the shorter your feedback loops become. Proof does not just record; it writes your future.
Proof Guides Decisions
Use the gallery to decide when to polish. If the artifact already moves people, you can invest a second box to refine it. If an artifact fell flat, cutting scope again might teach more than adding gloss. Because the museum shows you real reactions, it reduces the temptation to fix what nobody sees.
Momentum Boost
When motivation dips, open the museum. Scroll one month back. The list of small ships will remind you that you move even on slow days. Doubt loses its force when confronted with dated entries. The gallery becomes a quiet coach: you have done this before; you can do it again today.
Team Benefits
In a team, the museum levels understanding. Instead of arguing about whether “we made progress,” you point to the wall. Everyone sees the same artifacts and the same tags. Conversations shift from opinions to choices:
- What do we add to this wall next week?
- Which tag should we emphasize?
- Who do we ask based on this clip?
Safe and Sane
Keep capture safe and sane. Do not paste sensitive user data. Redact private details. Avoid posting full logs or raw dumps. The museum should hold the minimal evidence needed to tell the story to yourself and to friendly peers. You might keep separate versions for private use and public sharing, but keep it simple.
Keep It Light
No dashboards, no heavy templates, no guilt if you missed a day. Add today’s proof now. Add a tag. Add a line. Close the loop. Tomorrow you will be glad you did. This simple habit sets you up perfectly for the next chapter on polishing and refinement—knowing exactly where to invest your effort for maximum impact.