How to Document Your Accomplishments at Work

One of the skills with the highest ROI you can develop in your professional career is learning how to document your accomplishments.

'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?' Similarly, if you do impactful work but don’t document it, it's as if it never happened.

This comes super handy in your end-of-the-year reviews when you need to figure out everything you did during the year. It’s also vital when you need to update your resume and figure out what your highlights were for a role. And when you need to prepare a promotion package, this way, you don’t need to start from scratch.

Here, let’s go over some tips on how to document your accomplishments.

1- Use a simple, easy-to-access document.

It can be a document in Word or Excel, or even better, you can just use your favorite note-taking app (for example, Notion, Evernote, Apple Notes, One Note, etc. )

The important thing is that you can quickly locate it when you need to record a new thing and also make sure you can keep it when you move to a new job.

2- Add to the file every time you do something impactful. Write a paragraph with details on what you did, when you did it, and who was involved.

The easier the layout, the easier it is to maintain.

Here is a good example of what an accomplishment would look like:

”In July 2023, I successfully led the development and launch of a new feature for our company's flagship product, enhancing user experience significantly.

Collaborating closely with a team of five engineers and two designers, I coordinated the project from conception to implementation. My role involved not only writing critical portions of the code but also overseeing the integration of the feature with existing systems.

Additionally, I worked in tandem with the marketing and customer support teams to ensure a smooth rollout.

This feature, since its launch, has been praised by users and has led to a 15% increase in user engagement, as reported by our analytics team.”

Over to you, what other skills do you recommend to grow at work?