Career evidence
How to track your accomplishments at work
Pick one fixed ten-minute slot each week and answer seven questions: what changed, what you owned, what the outcome was, what responsibility you took on, what feedback you got, what you learned, and which number moved. That is the whole system.
Written by the Look at you go team ยท Published 18 August 2026
The seven questions
- 1.What changed this week because of me?
- 2.What did I own rather than help with?
- 3.What outcome actually happened, even a small one?
- 4.What responsibility did I take on that is new?
- 5.What feedback did I get, and from whom?
- 6.What did I learn or do for the first time?
- 7.What number moved, even roughly?
Most weeks you will answer three of them. That is fine. Fifty weeks of three answers is a career record; one heroic annual attempt is a memory test you will fail.
Write entries that survive nine months
Weak
Busy week, lots of meetings.
Strong
Chaired the supplier review because Dan was out. Agreed the revised delivery plan, no escalation needed.
Weak
Finished the report.
Strong
Delivered the Q3 risk report two days early. Finance used it in the board pack.
Weak
Helped Sam.
Strong
Coached Sam through their first client presentation. They ran the second one alone.
What to leave out
- Anything confidential you are not permitted to keep outside your employer's systems.
- Other people's personal data, performance or health information.
- Client information covered by an agreement you signed.
- Grievances. A record of work is not a case file, and mixing the two ruins both.
Why the habit dies, and how to keep it
- It dies because it is a blank page. Use the seven questions as prompts instead.
- It dies because it moves. Same slot, same day, every week.
- It dies because it feels like admin with no payoff. Read last quarter's entries once a quarter and the payoff becomes obvious.
Related questions
- Where should I keep the record?
- Somewhere you personally control and are permitted to use, and somewhere you will actually open. A private document is fine. What matters is that it is dated, specific and not stuck on a laptop you hand back when you leave.
- How long should each entry take?
- Ten minutes a week is plenty. Anything longer becomes a project, and projects get abandoned in March.
Let the record build itself
Try the 90-second check-inRelated guides
- Work journal guide
- Brag sheet
- How to remember what you achieved this year
- Evidence for a promotion: what actually counts
Back to career evidence or all career guides.