Every quarter, we dedicate one of our #oddthursdays to something called Brag Documents. We first read about it on Julia Evan’s blog and thought it would be a great practice to implement in our hive. Here’s what you need to know about Brag Documents:
1. What exactly is a brag document?
It is a document in which you record your small (and big!) wins and accomplishments, thus accumulating concrete evidence of what you’ve achieved.
2. What do you put into the brag document?
Anything you want! We like to set a few goals for the upcoming year and then have it broken down into a few sections: work projects, collaboration & mentorship, design & documentation, “What I learned” and “outside of work”.
3. Why is it important?
You don’t remember everything you did, your manager doesn’t remember everything you did, and (you guessed it!) your colleagues don’t remember everything that you did. It forces you to reflect on your work and see what you’ve enjoyed doing and what you’ve accomplished.
Bonus: when you are having a bad day, you can always look at all the good things you’ve done and feel good about yourself 🙂
4. What do you do with your brag documents once you have filled it out?
Share it with your colleagues! This is the best part of having a brag document – just because something is easy to you, doesn’t mean it is easy or not valuable for someone else. Every time we share our docs with each other, we are reminded of things we didn’t even think about putting in the doc – this helps build company culture and foster mutual responsibility.
