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Guide · Either side of a dispute

Putting six months in order when you didn't keep notes

The short answer

You are not too late. Build the record out of things that already carry a date — photos, messages, bank entries, your call log — rather than out of memory. Lay those down first as a spine, then add what you remember around them. Mark every entry with when you wrote it, so a reader can see which parts are contemporaneous and which are reconstruction. A late record that says it is late is worth a great deal. A late record pretending otherwise is worth nothing.

BuildMyEvidence editorial · Published Oct 10, 2026 · Reviewed Oct 10, 2026 · How we write these

01

This is the normal situation, not a failure

Almost nobody starts keeping records on day one. You start when it stops being an annoyance and becomes a problem, and by then there are months behind you.

The other side usually has the same gap, by the way. The difference is that an organization has systems that record things whether anyone meant to or not — call logs, ticket numbers, account notes. You have a phone. The good news is that your phone has been quietly recording dates all along.

02

The one rule: never backdate anything

This is the only way to get this badly wrong, so it comes first.

Write today's entry with today's date on it, even when the thing it describes happened in March. Two dates on everything: when it happened, and when you wrote it down.

Writing up March in October is reconstruction, and reconstruction is completely normal and completely acceptable — as long as it says so. Writing up March in October and dating the entry March is something else entirely, and if it is ever noticed, every other entry you made becomes worthless too.

So: no dating back, no "I'll just put the real date", no tidying up afterwards. Say when you wrote it. It costs you nothing and it is the thing that makes the rest hold.

03

Start with what is already dated, not with your memory

Your memory of six months ago is a story. Your phone's records are evidence of sequence. Start with the second one and let it remind you of the first.

Go through these, in this order. Most people get two thirds of their timeline back from the first three.

  1. 01
    Your photos. Sort by date, not by album. Every photo carries the date it was taken. Scroll back to when it started and work forward — you will find pictures you forgot you took.
  2. 02
    Your messages. Texts, WhatsApp, Messenger, whatever you use. Scroll to the start of the thread with the other side. Screenshot as you go, including the dates.
  3. 03
    Your email, sent as well as received. Search their name and their company name separately — people change jobs and addresses mid-dispute.
  4. 04
    Your call log. It holds numbers, dates and lengths. Screenshot it before it rolls over; most phones only keep a few months.
  5. 05
    Bank and card statements. Every payment is a dated fact, and so is every payment that was supposed to happen and didn't.
  6. 06
    Your calendar. Appointments made, and appointments nobody turned up to.
  7. 07
    Paper. Letters, invoices, receipts, delivery notes, the thing stuck on your door. Photograph them rather than retyping them.
  8. 08
    Anybody else who was there. Not for a statement — just to ask "when was that, roughly?" People remember different things.

04

Build the spine before the story

Resist the urge to write it all up properly as you go. You will get three entries in and lose the afternoon.

First pass: dates only. One line each. Feb 14, water through the ceiling, photos. Feb 15, emailed agent. Feb 22, no reply, called. Mar 3, plumber came. No detail, no feelings, no explanation.

When you have the spine, you can see the shape of it — and the gaps, which matter as much as the entries. Then go back and fill in what each one needs.

This order also stops the most common mistake, which is writing three beautiful paragraphs about the worst day and nothing at all about the eight ordinary ones that show the pattern.

05

Then add what you remember, and say that it is memory

Once the dated things are down, add the ones that left no trace — the conversations, the visits, the promises made in a doorway.

Write those the same way, with one addition: say what you are relying on. "Written October 10 from memory. I am confident of the week but not the exact day."

That sentence does more for you than a false precision would. A reader trusts somebody who distinguishes between what they know and what they think. The moment you claim to remember the exact minute of a conversation eight months ago, a reader starts wondering what else you have decided to be certain about.

06

Gaps are fine. Say where they are

You will not get all of it back. That is normal and it is not a problem, as long as you do not paper over it.

"Between late March and mid-May I have nothing written down. I remember two or three phone calls in that period and cannot date them."

That is an honest, useful line. It is far better than a vague entry that implies more than you can stand behind, and far better than silence that leaves a reader wondering what is missing.

07

From today, do it the other way round

The backfill is a one-off job. The habit is what matters from here.

From today, write the entry the day the thing happens. It takes two minutes and it is worth more than two hours of reconstruction later. Everything you record from now on is contemporaneous, and the record gets stronger every week without any further effort.

The backfilled part stays what it is: honest reconstruction, clearly marked, sitting underneath a properly kept record.

08

Where this goes wrong

  1. 01
    Backdating. Said again because it is the only fatal one.
  2. 02
    Writing it as an argument. You are laying out what happened, not making your case. The case comes later and it is stronger for being built on something plain.
  3. 03
    Leaving out the parts that do not help you. A record with only your best days in it reads as a case being assembled. One with the awkward bits reads as a record.
  4. 04
    Relying on what you will remember next week. You are doing this precisely because that did not work the first time.
  5. 05
    Retyping documents instead of keeping them. Photograph the letter. Your summary of it is not the letter.
  6. 06
    Stopping once it is tidy. The backfill is the start of the record, not the end of the job.

09

Questions people ask

Is a record I wrote months later actually worth anything?

Yes, provided it says when it was written. Nobody expects a private individual to have kept a live log from the first day. What a reader looks for is whether you are being straight about which parts were written at the time and which were not.

My photos have no dates on them.

They almost certainly do, in the file itself rather than on the picture. There is a separate guide on finding it: Find the date a photo or video was taken.

I have thousands of messages. Where do I start?

The first one. Scroll to the beginning of the thread and work forward — it is faster than searching, and you will catch the things you would not have thought to search for.

Should I go back and "fix" entries I have already written?

Correct them, don't replace them. If you got something wrong, add a line saying what you got wrong and when you noticed. A record that shows its own corrections is more believable than one that has never changed.

Where this fits

This is one part of keeping a record. The full method, and what the finished thing looks like, is in How to document a dispute.

Whatever you'd call it yourself — a person, a place, or the problem. You can change it later.

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How we write these

About this guide

This guide is written and reviewed by the BuildMyEvidence editorial team. It's about keeping a record, never about who's right or what anyone is owed. It doesn't name laws or deadlines, because those change from state to state. When something here changes, the reviewed date at the top changes with it.

Guide to putting a record in order after the fact · no statute cited · education on keeping a record, not legal advice.