Keys to Acing Your Next Performance Review

After a busy year of work, it’s tough to remember what projects we excelled at and tasks we still need help with — which makes annual performance reviews needlessly difficult. Esther Choy, CEO of the Leadership Story Lab, recently shared a few quick tips with Forbes on how to breeze through a performance review — and it involves starting some prep work today.

“By the time many of us are scrambling to distill a year’s worth of hard work into a brief narrative that will make us shine during outperformance review, lots of memories have already been lost,” writes Choy, a Forbes contributor. Here are two ways to put your best foot forward in your upcoming performance review:

1. Get on the same page as your boss. Choy advises sitting down with your boss early in the year to discuss three simple questions: If you could accomplish three major things for our immediate team this year, what might those be? What are the most urgent changes you’d like to see our entire organization embark on? How can I help?

“If your organization follows a standard performance review template, chances are you have already established your objectives and action items for 2019,” Choy writes. “This conversation will help you connect those to the big picture of what your manager wants to see the organization accomplish.”

2. Write your story. Choy suggests writing an “If You’re Only Remembered As” story at the end of each month, asking yourself, “If the only thing my boss can remember about my performance this month is this story, and this story alone, what would it be?” You can flip through your work calendar to help remind you of what you’ve accomplished.

“Save your story. Back it up. Repeat once a month, preferably at the end of the month,” Choy writes. “During your annual performance review, your future-self will thank your present-self profusely!”