Four decisions that decide whether it's evidence
Most people start a log. Far fewer make these four calls before they build months of rows around the wrong one.
Count in hours
Not occasions, not days. Nobody can argue an hour is defined unfairly, and it weights a lost overnight properly — which is honest, because a lost overnight and a lost hour aren't the same thing.
Group into episodes
A Friday-to-Monday lost in one go is one episode, not four incidents. Record it that way and the obvious challenge — that you've padded your numbers — has an answer before it's made.
State your threshold
If a delay under fifteen minutes doesn't count as lost contact in your method, write that down and apply it every time. Say it before anyone asks. It's the commonest attack on this kind of evidence.
Log the good days too
A log that only contains problems looks selective. A log that contains everything looks like a record. Contact that goes fine is still data — it's what makes the pattern visible.
Six parts, twenty-four chapters, fourteen worksheets
The complete method the free log comes from — how to build the record, how to stress-test it honestly, and how to arrive prepared.
Orientation
The shift from winning an argument to building a record, and what that changes about how you spend your time.
Your documentation system
The logs, the chronology, the evidence library, and how to cross-check your own records against ones you don't control.
Building and stress-testing
Your positive case — then the uncomfortable part: arguing against yourself, and for the other side, before anyone else does.
Working with the system
Getting real value from a lawyer's hour, working with welfare officers and evaluators, and requesting third-party records.
Conduct under pressure
Communicating on the record, boundaries without escalation, keeping your children out of the middle, and keeping contact alive when it's indirect.
Court ready
Preparing your written statement, preparing to give oral evidence, and the days immediately before.
Who this is for
It will help if you're…
- Separating from a co-parenting relationship that runs on conflict rather than cooperation
- Worried you'll lose time with your children because you don't have the record to show what happened
- Sitting on two years of messages and no idea how to turn them into anything usable
- Paying a lawyer by the hour and watching that hour go on admin you could have done yourself
- Willing to be honest about your own weak points before someone else finds them
- Anywhere in the world — the system is jurisdiction-neutral by design, so it adapts to your process rather than assuming one
It won't help if you want…
- Legal advice. This is a preparation system, not a substitute for a qualified lawyer where you live
- A guaranteed outcome. Nobody can offer you one, and be wary of anyone who implies otherwise
- Ammunition. Roughly a third of this is about turning the same scrutiny on yourself
- A diagnosis of the other parent. There isn't one in here, deliberately
- A safety plan. If you or your children are at risk, contact a domestic abuse organisation first
Everything the log came from
A 56-page PDF playbook and workbook. Instant download. Print it, fill it in, take it to whoever is advising you.
- 56-page PDF playbook and workbook
- 24 chapters across six parts
- 14 worksheets you fill in rather than read
- Print them, or copy the columns into your own spreadsheet
- Everything in the workbook
- The contact log as a working spreadsheet
- Hours, episodes and your stated threshold applied to every row automatically
- Period summaries that recalculate themselves and can't drift out of step
Written to work in any jurisdiction. Court process differs everywhere; the discipline of building a record that holds up does not. Worksheets included: contact and handover log, evidence tracker, master chronology, key dates, communication cross-reference, activity and receipts, positive case, self red-team checklist, steelman worksheet, evidence rating sheet, method and definitions, pre-hearing checklist, a draft sheet for difficult replies, and an indirect contact log.
If you genuinely can't afford this right now, email me and I'll send it to you. No explanation needed, and I won't ask about your situation.