Recording Accomplishments

This year is flying by. I've been busy at my job. I'm almost at my two year mark at LRS. So far so good.

Yet, I get down on myself still. I've felt that I hadn't accomplished much or I'm just not doing enough to become a better developer.

I don't know where I got the idea but a few weeks ago I decided to set up a folder in my Google Drive and then jot down my daily "wins" or accomplishments. I don't care how small the wins are or if they are from work or my own personal projects. I don't have to finish a task but if I'm making progress that means I'm going forward.

In doing so I have felt better. I'm making notes on things I thought were challenging. What I like is having a record that I can look back on. I also like that even if I'm having trouble on a specific task, I still have a bunch of others that I didn't have trouble with. It's rare I get nothing done (I do have one day a week where I may not get anyting done. That's called taking the day off to get refreshed).

Obviously before I started recording my accomplishments, I was accomplishing things. However, when I wasn't recording them, I'd just forget about it. I do so much my days just blend together so normally I can't remember what I did 5 days ago. I would get so caught up in the moment. If I was failing at solving a task, I was a failure. If I solved a problem, I was a genius. It was like a rollercoaster. Now that I have a record, I can look back and know that I consistently get stuff done. I'm generally doing well. I'm progressing. I'm not failing. On tough days I can look at it and feel better.

I'd very much recommend recording your accomplishments. Find a method that works for you. It can be in a fancy app or in a notebook where you jot them down with a pen. It only takes a few minutes and it's worth that time.

Now I'm going to add to my accomplishments: "Wrote my first blog post in months."