When you’re crafting technical documentation, your sense of time differs greatly from that of your future readers. Your explanations might be thoroughly read, browsed in haste, or even processed by a search engine or AI assistant using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).

Yet, it’s vital to keep your reader in mind. Often, months after stepping away from a codebase, you’ll find yourself as the first user of your own documentation. When you hit a roadblock, you may recall a helpful code example or a best practice you previously documented.

Eventually, questions from readers will arise—sometimes long after you’ve written the docs. For these readers, it’s always the first time encountering a particular issue. They’re looking for answers to solve their problems and move forward. It’s tempting to reply quickly to colleagues in private chats, but updating the documentation with these solutions makes a lasting impact. This ongoing feedback keeps your documentation relevant and saves time for everyone in the future.

Remember: Your future self will thank you for clear, complete documentation when faced with challenges down the road. By bridging the gap between the writer’s and reader’s timelines, you create resources that remain valuable long after they’re written.