How on earth do you keep track of progress?

It is one year to the day that I've been in my first full-time permanent adult job, and of course time has absolutely flown by.

‘Time flying’ is a phrase I hear all the time, which is in part due to our perception of the length of a year as each additional year passes. But I won’t get into that for now.

I've learnt that it can be difficult to keep track of progress when the norm has been education, as it provides you with excellent opportunities for progress tracking, including but not limited to:

• A structured, and to an extent, standardised system of feedback, reports and marks/grades.
• A year which runs from September year-to-year, giving a natural opportunity to reflect on the past year.
• A year broken down into terms with three main breaks in the year for additional reflection.

'Progress reporting’ differs between jobs, but will most likely take form of regular performance reviews, against predetermined criteria. Whilst I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with that format, I think it can be too easy to fall into only reviewing performance this way. 

In March, I accidentally started a monthly list of achievements by writing down some things I was proud of for a review meeting.

I felt a little dopamine release upon reading back on my accomplishments, so over the months it became one side of A4 outlining my year’s worth of achievements. 

It can be difficult to look back at year end and remember our achievements, especially when they may not all be a big part of your main events/projects. Humans also conveniently hold a negativity bias, whereby we are more likely to remember bad events, focus on them more, and are more likely to believe bad characteristics about ourselves. Try and think of a time you embarrassed yourself at work. Now think of a time at work you really shined or you felt proud. The former will most likely shoot to the forefront of your mind, whilst you may need to wade through some bad memories to get the latter. 

This bias can make it rather difficult for us to retrospectively look over the year as a whole and remember those good moments.

So I encourage you, when they happen, to note down those small moments. This will naturally differ for everyone, and it can be anything from feeling you've used or developed valuable skills, to helping out elsewhere in your department or wider organisation where there was great need. Anything that makes you feel good about yourself in your job!

And when it comes to the end of the year, you can look back and get that nice dopamine release and feel good about what you have achieved.