---
title: "Managing work context — Knowledge data 2026"
url: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data/context-work
year: 2026
chapter: "knowledge"
question: "ContextWork"
section: "Context Challenges"
licence: "ODbL 1.0 (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/)"
---

# Managing work context

Context management is highly manual — keeping separate notes (54%) and starting fresh AI sessions (45%) dominate.

Asked as: Which of the following do you do to manage or prepare context for your work? Select all that apply. (`ContextWork`, multi select, optional, v2026.1)

## Options offered

1. Keep notes or prompts in a separate document
2. Copy and paste information between tools
3. Start new AI chats or sessions to reset context
4. Manually select files or documents for AI tools
5. Ask teammates where to find information
6. Search across multiple tools
7. Maintain personal documentation or notes
8. Maintain team documentation or wikis
9. Reuse saved prompts or templates
10. Limit the context I share because of privacy/security concerns
11. I do not do anything specific to manage context
12. Other, please specify (with free-text entry)

## Results

### All Respondents

n = 12,039

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Keep notes or prompts in a separate document | 6,495 | 53.9% |
| Maintain personal documentation or notes | 6,482 | 53.8% |
| Start new AI chats or sessions to reset context | 5,415 | 45.0% |
| Maintain team documentation or wikis | 5,178 | 43.0% |
| Ask teammates where to find information | 4,572 | 38.0% |
| Manually select files or documents for AI tools | 4,174 | 34.7% |
| Search across multiple tools | 3,993 | 33.2% |
| Copy and paste information between tools | 3,939 | 32.7% |
| Reuse saved prompts or templates | 1,892 | 15.7% |
| Limit the context I share because of privacy/security concerns | 1,198 | 10.0% |
| I do not do anything specific to manage context | 829 | 6.9% |
| Other | 199 | 1.7% |

In context: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/knowledge/data.md