It’s getting towards the end of the year, a good time for looking back at what you did and didn’t do and figuring out what you’ll try changing next year. If you don’t keep some sort of work log or diary it’s hard to do this properly. You’ll forget things from months ago so there will be a lot of recency bias.

You don’t have to write an essay every day, a list of bullet points will be enough to jog your memory. Though it’s definitely worth making more extensive notes for anything that stands out. It doesn’t matter where you keep the notes, computer, paper, photos of a whiteboard will do as long as you are consistent.

You can choose to review these notes multiple times during the year and write summaries so the final end of year review doesn’t mean going back through every day. Even if you don’t have to do this for a work performance review it’s a great way of keeping track of how your systems and goals are working over the long term.

Do you keep a work diary? If someone asked you what you were doing three months ago how hard would it be for you to figure out and tell them?