Over the years I’ve tried to keep a record of what I’ve done in some form or other. I’ve experimented with week notes (effectively a summary of what you did over the past week that you might make public, or just keep private).

I’ve also made notes focussed on a sprint so I am better prepared for the retro. I’ve also tried daily notes, partly so I could use them for the update at stand-ups.

Unfortunately, none of these have lasted more than a few months before I break the habit. There isn’t a single reason this happens, more so that there are number of contributing factors:

  • Whether it was weekly or daily, I was attempting to stick to a set schedule and when I eventually broke the streak I found it difficult to reach the same level of consistency and then just ran out steam
  • When I write I tend to edit constantly which results in more time being taken than I would ideally want to spend on the activity
  • I would consider only a small subset of what I’d done as worth recording which would become a little disheartening when I would see just how much other people had recorded!
  • Beyond the act of recording what I’d done which would provide me with the info I could use in stand-ups or retros I wasn’t entirely sure what value I was getting out of the process

On reflection, I think these issues can be summarised into the four areas I’ve expanded on below.

Frequency

To reduce the issue about sticking to a schedule I’m simply going to attempt to capture something daily or weekly or perhaps just monthly and not worry if that doesn’t happen. Ideally I’ll record something daily more often than not and have a weekly record almost all of them time but I think the key is not being tied to a schedule.

Time taken

I’m going to try and edit less whilst I’m doing the writing, however, I think that is more easily said than done! I’ll probably read a few blogs about how to improve and potentially look if there are any writing courses that could help me improve my writing speed.

Record everything

Maybe not everything! However, I’ll certainly be recording more stuff than I would have previously. I’m going to record much smaller achievements, learnings, teachings, etc. Related to this, I’ve also started to record things I’ve learnt which I hope will encourage me to publish more frequently.

Value

I’ve read a couple of posts about brag documents which have helped me to understand the value of such a document. The value includes having a written record I can use:

  • to reflect on what I have done, what I haven’t done, what I should be doing, etc.
  • to help me understand if I am going in the direction I need to in order to achieve my goals and objectives
  • as evidence to advocate for myself or provide to others to advocate on my behalf during reviews
  • to help with interview preparation by providing a ready generated list of examples to use rather than having to spend time trying (and failing) to remember everything that would be good to have at the forefront of your mind

Summary

Whilst I’ve not detailed what a brag document contains (the posts linked above do a good job) I’ve hopefully set out some good reasons as to why it is worth having one along with some approaches on how to make it into a habit.

Whether you call it a brag document or week notes or a work record or a dairy, it doesn’t matter, having a record of stuff you have done is a good idea. I really wish I had done this more consistently over the course of my career.

As a slight aside, I do wonder about those times when I felt I didn’t have much to record and whether that was an indicator it was time to look for a new challenge.