promotion thread because I feel like it:

over the years i’ve gotten pretty good at navigating promotion processes, and i’ve mentored a bunch of other folks on it as well. a lot of my advice isn’t widely applicable BUT there are two things i do which make life better in general

1. keep a weekly log of your work/accomplishments!

we do a lot without realizing it or crediting ourselves. if we don’t give ourselves credit then we won’t remember it later, and others won’t know about our work either (see this is important for the promotion part)

what your log looks like can vary depending on what you care about keeping track of.

so—if you if you made that scary phone call and that was progress for you, write it down! if you presented something to your team and presenting makes you nervous, write it down!

mine is as simple as a big google doc with bullet points for each week, that i update at least every friday

sometimes all i do is write “i talked to this person” but it still helps—this thing has saved my LIFE when it comes to yearly reviews and proving habits for promotions

2. save every nice thing someone has ever said about you and/or your work!

take a screenshot. save that screenshot. put it in a folder. now it’s yours forever.

maybe you’re too embarrassed of the praise now, but you might love re-reading it later. the internet keeps things we post forever so why not use that to our advantage for the nice things!

if you’ve ever said something nice to or about me then congrats you’ve made my folder

this one honestly doesn’t have anything to do with promotions, i don’t even share my screenshots with anyone. it’s just nice to see them pile up slowly over the year, nice to go back and look at them. just real nice!!!

and uh that’s it. two simple things.

1. write down your accomplishments

2. save your praise

thanks for listening to my excuse to procrastinate real work, and i hope you find this useful!