You forget your best work by review time every year. Ten minutes now saves a blank-page scramble at review or interview season later.
| Setup time | About 2 minutes |
|---|---|
| Log frequency | Weekly, on Fridays |
| Bullet formula | Strong verb, action, result, number |
| Concept origin | Brag documents, popularized by Julia Evans in 2019 |
1. Start a running note
Open any notes app, or even a WhatsApp chat to yourself. Title it something like ‘This Year’s Wins.’ This is the only setup step, and it takes two minutes.
2. Log the moment it happens
Whenever you finish something worth remembering, write two lines. No polishing, just what happened. Example: ‘Caught the vendor invoice error before it went to finance.’
3. Every Friday, hand the week to AI
Paste that week’s raw lines into any AI chat. Use one fixed instruction so the output stays consistent every time: ‘Turn each note into a resume-style bullet: strong verb, what I did, the result, a number if there is one. Group under problem-solving, delivery, people. Keep my voice, don’t invent details.’
4. Save the polished version, keep the raw one too
Paste the AI output into a dated log, one entry per week. Keep your original messy notes underneath. You will want both when memory is fuzzy.
5. Do it once now
Open a notes app and write one line about something you did this week. That single line is the whole habit started.
A worked example
A finance analyst in Mumbai logs three rough notes to herself over a busy week.
Before
– caught the vendor invoice thing before it went to finance, saved us from paying twice
– helped the new guy figure out the reconciliation sheet, he was stuck for 2 days
– redid the monthly variance report format, old one took forever to read
After
Problem-solving: Caught a duplicate vendor invoice before payment, preventing a repeat payment error.
People: Unblocked a new team member on the reconciliation sheet, cutting his stuck time from two days to same-day resolution.
Delivery: Redesigned the monthly variance report format, reducing review time for leadership.
Three ways to bend it
For managers
Log one line about each team member’s win too, not just your own. When their review comes up, you have specifics instead of vague praise.
For freelancers
Log client outcomes instead of internal wins: what changed for them, in numbers if you have them. This becomes raw material for case studies and proposals, not just a review document.
For students and early career
Log what you actually did in coursework, projects, or internships, not just the title. This gives you real bullets to build a first resume from instead of guessing what sounds impressive.
When it goes wrong
I forget to log all week and Friday arrives with nothing written.
Set a daily reminder for the end of your workday, or log right after any meeting where you did something notable. Also skim your sent emails or calendar from the week, most weeks have more wins than you remember.
The AI bullets sound generic or slightly inflated.
Tell it plainly: ‘don’t invent numbers or outcomes I didn’t give you.’ Then edit anything that doesn’t sound like something you would actually say.
When not to use this
If your week was mostly maintenance or routine with nothing distinct to point to, skip logging that week. Forcing a bullet out of nothing just trains you to inflate small tasks, and it makes the log less trustworthy later.
What you can now do
When review season or a job hunt lands on your desk, you open months of your own work in your own words, instead of a blank box and a guess.
Part of Making Life Easier With AI, a weekly walk-through of one small thing AI can take off your plate.
Take this further
Build the outline for my interview presentation: a 90-day plan for this role. Structure: slide 1, what I understood about the team's goal, in one line. Slides 2 to 4, the first 30, 60 and 90 days, each with two priorities and what done looks like. Slide 5, the risks I would watch and how I would report progress. Slide 6, the three questions I would ask the team. One idea per slide, seven slides maximum, no filler text. Keep every claim something I can defend out loud in the room. The role: [paste job description]. My context: [paste five bullet points about you].
Takeaways
- Open any notes app right now and title one note ‘This Year’s Wins’ to start your log.
- Write two unpolished lines the moment you finish something worth remembering, including a number if there is one.
- Every Friday, paste that week’s raw notes into an AI chat with one fixed instruction covering verb, action, result and grouping.
- Explicitly tell the AI not to invent numbers or outcomes you did not give it, then edit any bullet that does not sound like you.
- Keep both the AI-polished bullets and your original raw notes in a dated log so you have both versions later.
Questions people actually ask
How do I remember my accomplishments for a performance review?
Keep a running log all year instead of trying to recall twelve months of work in one sitting. Start a simple note titled something like ‘This Year’s Wins,’ add two lines whenever you finish something worth noting, and review it weekly. By review season you have a dated record instead of a blank page and a guess.
What should I write down in a weekly work log?
Two plain lines about what you actually did, not polished prose. Note the task, the problem it solved, and a number if one exists, for example catching an invoice error before it reached finance. Skip weeks that were pure maintenance with nothing distinct, since forcing a bullet out of routine work trains you to inflate small tasks.
Can I use ChatGPT or another AI chatbot to write my resume bullet points?
Yes, if you feed it your own raw notes rather than asking it to invent achievements. Give it a fixed instruction to turn each note into a bullet with a strong verb, the action, and the result, grouped by category like problem solving or delivery. Always edit the output afterward so it still sounds like you.
How do I stop AI from making up numbers or exaggerating my achievements?
Tell it directly not to invent numbers or outcomes you did not provide, and only give it details you actually wrote down yourself. Anthropic’s own guidance on reducing hallucinations recommends grounding responses in the exact material you supply rather than letting the model fill gaps from general knowledge, then editing anything that sounds generic or inflated.
What is a brag document and do I need one?
It is a running list of your work wins, a concept popularized by engineer Julia Evans, that you update regularly so you are not reconstructing a year of work from memory at review time. You do not need special software, a notes app or a chat to yourself works, as long as you actually add to it.
Sources
- Get your work recognized: write a brag documentJulia Evans (jvns.ca)
- Write Impressive Bullet Points Using APR FormatUniversity of Arizona Career Services
- Reduce hallucinationsAnthropic
- A Work Log Template for Software EngineersThe Pragmatic Engineer
What happens next
Expect more note-taking and calendar tools to build in a weekly-digest prompt that nudges people toward exactly this kind of log, since the habit is cheap and the payoff shows up months later. AI chat interfaces are also likely to get built-in ‘stick to what I gave you’ modes as more people use them for personal record keeping, not just search. Worth watching is whether people start trusting AI-polished bullets without checking them against the raw notes, since that is where generic or slightly inflated language slips through.
