We are approaching the end of the year, which means for many employees here in the U.S it is time to write their self-reviews of their annual performance. For many, this can seem like an uninteresting or daunting task. However, this crucial step needs to be both taken seriously and executed well in order to secure yourself the best possible review in the coming months.
Simply put, a brag book is a chronological list of accomplishments or notes of situations where you performed exceptionally well or did something that was far outside your normal expected duties (emphasis on the far outside part, this isn’t the place to mention that one time you helped take out the trash because the janitor was sick). At the end of each day where you performed something of significance, make a brief yet detailed entry explaining what happened and why it’s noteworthy (remember, you will need to be able to look back in 6-12 months and recall exactly what happened and why). Try to keep these brag book entries as close to when the event occurred as possible, because human memory is unreliable, and almost nobody can remember every noteworthy thing they did 12 months after the fact. For longer projects, include when the project was started, finished, what your contribution was, and how it impacted the group.
Some examples of entries pertaining to individual accomplishments can be something like “April 5th: recommended and implemented a design improvement that resulted in fewer breakdowns of the Whatever Machine” or “May 26th: discovered and reported a $100,000 accounting discrepancy on the final budget report before it was sent to a client”. Some entries relating to a team project could look something like “Added to the Recycling Committee by the Senior Manager in August. By November 8th, I had installed 12 bins around company premise that prevented 2 tons of waste from going to the landfill” or “Joined the Event Planning Committee in March. By September 19th I had organized and set-up 4 community outreach events and one client visit”. These entries are only examples, so you’ll need to tailor them to your specific line of work.
If you have any doubts as to whether something is noteworthy, record it in your brag book anyways. You can always decide later if it is relevant to include on your self-review or not. As the name implies, this isn’t the place to be modest either (be bold and brag!). Thus, come time to write your annual self-review, you’ll have a ready-made list to easily piece together your review from. I’ve been using a brag book for several years now and it has made this process a lot smoother.
It’s never too late to start. Happy Bragging!
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