Why you need to write a weekly self-evaluation

Why you need to write a weekly self-evaluationWhy you need to write a weekly self-evaluationDo you remember the last time you had to rewrite yur resume or create a newcover letter?If your experience is like most peoples, you end up sitting in front of a blank document with the cursor blinking all by itself. What do I say about myself and why does it matter? How do I even begin to put this together?Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreLets rewind a bit. You likely spend around 40 hours a week at your traditional job. Since youre an optimal employee (winky face) we know you do great work- on a daily basis. So, why, when it comes to putting together a tight resume or an illustrative cover letter do we draw blanks?Often, its because we let work go by. We come in Monday, keep our heads down, and we take care of business. Before we know it, another year has passed- and we ask ourselves, Wh ere did the last year go? Whateven happenedin 2017? 2018? 2019?In short, we need to slow down for a minute. Heres our challenge to you before hightailing it to your next weekend full of hikes, Netflix, and yoga- take a minute to reflect on the week you completed.PRACTICE WEEKLY MINDFULNESS (ITS JUST FIVE MINUTES)We know, mindfulness is a buzzy word, but itismeaningful. As people- and especially as women- we rarely slow down enough to take in our accomplishments.Its our hope that, by taking five minutes on a Friday, you can create and maintain a dedicated time to really look at the week behind you. Take this time to count your wins, your losses, and where youd like to improve.So, take out your timer and platzset it to sixty seconds. Heres an easy 5-step way to summarize your weekSTEP ONE CELEBRATE YOUR WINS (60 SECONDS)This is the most important step, especially when- down the line- you will need torevamp your resumeor LinkedIn profile. Get those wins on paper- or else you will forge t about them. This isnt Fight Club, so the rules are reversed. The first rule about a great win istalking about a great win.Noticing your wins is the first step to actually realizing them. Rather than saying Well, it is my job or Its not that big of a deal, take the moment to revel in it. Youset a goaland you achieved it.In addition to documenting your win, insert details about it. If you have a specific number you hit, document that. If you built a specific team to overcome an obstacle, include those details and the names of the players involved. If you deployed a brand new strategy, write down the dirty details of how you did it.Once you have gathered a few weeks of wins, you will look back. Even if youre notjob searching, this practice is extremely helpful in recognizing patterns that lead to success.STEP TWO ADDRESS YOUR LOSSES OR WEAKNESSES (60 SECONDS)Just like celebrating wins, recognizing losses or missed targets is important. As painful as they may be, we learn so much from our losses- sometimes we learn more from a single failure than we do from a dozen successes.Creating this list is like ripping off a bandage, so lets do it quick. Create two columnsThe lossHow I will remedy it going forwardDid you makea spelling errorin an important email to a client? Next time, take those extra two minutes to spellcheck that email. Did you forget to follow-up with a coworker about a project? Set daily reminders for check-ins on certain projects. Did you oversleep and come in late on a Tuesday? Make sure youre getting enough sleep- and maybe skip that third glass of wine over dinner.If you made it through the week with perfect grammar, exemplary communication, and eight+ hours of sleep a night, you can still spend some time on this section. Instead of communicating a hard loss, spend behauptung 60 seconds on what youd like to work on- professionally and personally. Maybe its your innate fear of public speaking. Maybe its working up the confidence to ask for a raise (in which case, maybe you want to spend 120 seconds on step one,) or maybe its a skill set you want to pick up over the next weeks.If you dont see any hard losses, thats awesome- use this section as a wish list for overcoming any weaknesses you might see.STEP THREE NOTE YOUR COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA TASKS (60 SECONDS)Heres a little in-between area to explore.These are the bullet points from your to-do list that got bumped to the bottom of the list, didnt get completely fulfilled, or were ignored entirely. These are usually jobs that are a pain to complete, that take you away from your more important work, or that you just hate completing. That doesnt mean they arent important to tackle. After all, theres a reason they showed up on your to-do list in the first place.There are lots of questions to be asked of these coulda, woulda, shouldas. Are these tasks you neglected to the detriment of your week? Or are they tasks better suited for someone else in your department? Did you knowingl y neglect to complete this work? Do you regularly put this work off?For this list, create three columnsThe first column will annotate the task itselfThe second column will list the problem or reason the task was not completedThe third will list a solution for making sure it gets addressed in the coming weekWith some of our more annoying tasks at work, sometimes it is best to tackle them first. Everybody has those pesky things they dont want to do. Once you recognize your coulda woulda, shoulda tasks, consider giving them the priority space at the top of your list in the weeks to come.STEP FOUR CREATE GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK (60 SECONDS)Were biased- becausewe love creating goals- but this is the fun part.Lets set the stage. Its around 330 pm on a Friday. Youre itching to get out of work, but you have a few loose ends to tie up and a couple of emails youre waiting on to close out your week. This really is the perfect time to set some goals.Heres the thing about goals. If you dont set them , you might be lucky to happen upon some success. However, simply by recognizing and setting a goal, you are so much closer to actually achieving it- with purpose. How amazing is that?Another cool perk about setting goals? You can check back with yourself next week. Did you achieve those goals or did you make progress towards them? What could you continue to do to chase those goals down?STEP FIVE SUMMARIZE IT ALL IN ONE SENTENCE (60 SECONDS)Remember how we started out by saying this is all a bit of practice for developingthe perfect resume, LinkedIn profile, or cover letter? Well, here is the part where you practice being concise.Wrap up all your learnings into one or two sentences that can summarize your week. Think of this section as tweet-length- and summarize your week in 280 characters or less. Once youve honed in on whats really important, your weekly tweet will convey the most crucial takeaways- whether they are positive outcomes or learnings from negative failures.IN SUMMARY Maybe some of this sounds pretty obvious. Sure, we agree. But, just like anything, its helpful to implement healthy habits around recognition and cognizance at work. By implementing a weekly self-evaluation, you are keeping an important paper trail of your own habits, strengths, weaknesses, and- lets face it- your own workplace superpowers.Take the five minutes and try it out. Yourentire careerwill thank you.This article first appeared on Career Contessa.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people