March 7, 2024 • 12 mins
Ever feel like you're being pver looked for promotions and treading water, struggling to showcase your career progress? Tune in as I, reveal key strategies to document your remote work achievements and ensure they don't go unnoticed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alex Farn, remote worker life.
I hope this finds you well,wherever you may be, and in
today's quick tip I want to talkabout the importance of
documenting your work progressto maintain a sense of control
and accomplishment.
Now there's talk about remotework, or remote workers
(00:20):
specifically being less visibleand affects that it can have
upon their career, effects thatthey can have potentially upon
opportunities in the workplaceto get promoted, or just
opportunities to Get recognitionfor the work that remote
(00:41):
workers do.
So the reason I've decided todate talk about Documenting your
work progress, to maintain asense of control and
accomplishment is to, I guess,to allay those, those types of
scenarios.
And I think personally, remoteworkers do Do contribute a lot
(01:07):
when it comes to remote worker,at least the workers that I know
, and they shouldn't necessarilyhave to go the extra mile to To
prove their worth.
But if you do find yourself ina situation where you Perhaps
are not as visible as you wouldlike to be, then hopefully some
(01:28):
of the tips that I share withyou today are going to help you
to To to remedy that, but notjust, not not just that, but
also, I believe, that some ofthese tips that will help you to
be, you know, become moreconfident in yourself and what
you're doing.
And it's valuable to do this todevelop or some of these things
(01:48):
that I'm about to suggest, inorder for you just to simply
Develop your career and makeprogress, because it's always
important, whether you Want toget promotion or not, it's
always important to to feel asthough you're making progress.
So, yeah, it's important fromthat aspect, and this all stems
from, as well, my experience asa remote worker.
(02:10):
When I first started out, Ibecame, I guess, quite isolated,
and that was self-inflicted,that was because I wasn't doing
the right things back then.
And, of course, you learn fromyour experiences.
You, you, you develop and you,you improve, you iterate, for
example, and you not only learnfrom experiences, but you learn
(02:32):
from other people.
I've learned from a lot ofother people how to, or what to
do and what not to do, in orderto, sort of, can continue to
progress with, with my career.
And, as I said, documentingwork, progress and maintaining a
Sense of control, a sense ofaccomplishment, is one way in
which I've done that.
So I just want to share withyou a few tips not necessarily
(02:55):
tips, not necessarily every oneof these tips I've used myself,
but these are things that I'veeither used myself or I've
learned from others in order toto maintain, maintain that
progress and that sense ofcontrol and accomplishment.
So tip number one is is usingtask management tools.
Now, these tools might be toolsthat you use personally, or
(03:19):
these might be tools that I useon a corporate basis, within the
teams that you, you, work inand you I don't know.
Whatever you work, you may havean option to use a task
management tool or not, but evenif you do use a task, so even
if you Don't have a Sort of acorporate task management tool,
I'd always recommend Using yourown or finding your own.
(03:43):
And that's because you can usea task management tool to
document your daily tasks andyou should be doing that anyway,
even if it's on a piece ofpaper.
But you know I documenting iton a task management tool is,
for me, probably the optimumroute to take.
It can help you to, as I said,document your daily tasks,
(04:04):
priorities and see the progressthat you're making, and that can
help you to maintain visibilityin your work and provide a
sense of control.
I mean, like I said, even ifyou're not using a corporate
tool, if you're documenting thetasks that you're doing on your
own personal tool.
You'll then be able to go intoyour conversations and meetings
(04:26):
with your managers and tell themthe progress that you're making
and update them on what you'redoing and what's coming next and
have oversight of what'shappening in the future.
So, task management tools isnumber one.
Number two is creating anaccomplishment log.
Now, this is something thatI've advocated for years, and
(04:47):
that's because keeping anaccomplishment log, or a record
of achievements, as I call it,to document your completed tasks
and achievements and positivefeedback, is something that is a
great resource.
Now, that's because it can helpyou to see what you're
achieving and what you're doing,and achievements don't
necessarily have to be massivethings.
(05:11):
It could be small, iterativesteps that you're making, small
pieces of progress that you'remaking that you're documenting.
But you can also, as I said,log the bigger things as well as
the smaller things and, as Isaid, it can help you with your
confidence.
But have you ever found yourselfin a situation where you want
(05:36):
to change jobs, for whateverreason whether that's because
your role is being maderedundant, you've lost your job
that sort of job search scenariowhere you're probably panicking
and thinking you need to puttogether a resume Now, having an
accomplishment record or arecord of achievement.
If you do that as you go along,even start it today that can
(06:01):
really help you to put togethera resume of relevant information
, because you can then pick andchoose which of those
accomplishments that you add toyour resume.
And, of course, when you're ina situation where you're looking
for a new role, you're usuallyperhaps thinking of many things
at once and it's not easy tothen trawl your memory of what
(06:24):
happened one, two, three, four,five years ago in order to put
that on your resume.
So start today.
Even if you don't plan to leaveyour job immediately, even if
you don't plan to set up yourcompany immediately, even if you
don't plan to move on to yournext contract immediately, start
that record now in order to putit together so that when it
(06:48):
comes time for you to make thattransition, that accomplishment
record is there for you then tocherry pick the accomplishments
and achievements that you wantto put on your resume.
So that's number two.
Number three regular reviews.
And now regular.
By regular, I mean, I mean thatthat can.
What's regular to some peopleis not necessarily regular to
(07:10):
others.
So, for example, for me aregular review might be six
months or it might be threemonths.
To others it might be everyweek.
So I think you have to decidebetween yourself and your
manager when you want to do yourreviews and agree.
You know a reasonable timeframe in order to do that, and I
(07:32):
think that's important becausethen you can understand, you can
get feedback from your manager,you can reflect and talk about
the progress that you're making,the accomplishments that you've
recorded, identify areas forimprovement and set new goals.
But again, that's a good way toremain visible and, of course,
(07:57):
that feedback that you get fromyour manager whether it's good
or not so good is going to helpyou in the long run.
So regular reviews is anotherone.
Number four on my list issharing your progress.
So share your progress withyour team and your manager, your
employer, to maintainvisibility and ensure your
contributions are recognized andvalued.
(08:19):
So sharing could also extend toyour network as well.
If there are no privacy issuesor no sort of issues with,
obviously you need to get sortof permission from your employer
if you're sharing things thatare sort of sensitive from a
corporate standpoint, butfinding some way or means of
(08:42):
sharing them.
So that might be an internalemail, that might be internal PR
, it might be on a blog internalblog.
Then again, it might beexternal.
It might be via a sort of apublic blog.
It might be via LinkedIn, forexample.
You're sharing that progressthat you're making in order to
(09:06):
sort of build momentum, to buildcuriosity, and whatever it is
that you're sharing about.
That's really important toshare that so that people can
see what you're doing and makesure that obviously, it's being
shared with the right people aswell.
So great way of staying visibleis by sharing your progress and
(09:30):
, of course, hopefully that youhave the company that you work
for has internal mechanisms todo that and is on board with
doing that.
But of course, in someinstances, as I said before, you
may need to get permissionbefore you start to share stuff
online and wherever it may be.
So number five on my list isclosely linked to sharing
(09:51):
progress, and that iscelebrating achievements,
whether big or small.
So even what you might perceiveas a small step may be worth
celebrating, because someprogress is worth well, it's
worth its weight in gold.
Some progress is better than noprogress at all.
(10:12):
So even the small steps thatyou, all the things that you see
as small steps could be worthcelebrating, even if it's like I
don't know, give yourself asquare of chocolate or something
, I don't know, it could beanything like that.
So, but the bigger things forthe bigger picture, you need to
take time to celebrate yourachievements, whether that's
(10:32):
with yourself, with yourimmediate team, with the
business as a whole.
Again, if you have permission tocelebrate certain milestones,
if it's not sensitive, it's notcorporate sensitive, corporately
sensitive information it mightbe possible to celebrate those
things via social media again,to show what you're doing, and
(10:56):
that can really give you a senseof motivation, especially if
your colleagues are then chimingin and giving you
congratulations on whatever isthat you're celebrating.
So I think those are the fivethings I would certainly
strongly suggest that you dowhen it comes to documenting
(11:18):
your work, progress, to maintaina sense of control and a sense
of accomplishment, especially ifyou're working remotely, that
sense of visibility thatapparently is lacking in remote
work.
And, of course, you know, whenit comes to working alongside
people who work in office andthey may have that natural
(11:42):
visibility because they get tosee their peers and their
managers perhaps more often thatthis whole idea of what I'm
talking about today becomes allthe more important.
Well, I hope it's been helpfulfor you.
I wish you all the best withthat.
If you have any questions, asusual, I've left my contact
(12:03):
details in the show notes.
You can usually get me or reachme via LinkedIn.
If you just look below, there'sa link to my LinkedIn profile
just below.
Do say hello and, if thisepisode has been useful, please
consider sharing this with yournetwork.
Please consider dropping areview or a rating if it's been
of help as well, and, of course,I'm always open to feedback and
(12:26):
I'm open to suggestions ofepisodes on episodes to add to
the remote work life podcast.
So I look forward to hearingfrom you and I wish you all the
best.
Hey, it's Alex Farn, remote worker life.
I hope this finds you well,wherever you may be, and in
today's quick tip I want to talkabout the importance of
documenting your work progressto maintain a sense of control
and accomplishment.
Now there's talk about remotework, or remote workers
(00:20):
specifically being less visibleand affects that it can have
upon their career, effects thatthey can have potentially upon
opportunities in the workplaceto get promoted, or just
opportunities to Get recognitionfor the work that remote
(00:41):
workers do.
So the reason I've decided todate talk about Documenting your
work progress, to maintain asense of control and
accomplishment is to, I guess,to allay those, those types of
scenarios.
And I think personally, remoteworkers do Do contribute a lot
(01:07):
when it comes to remote worker,at least the workers that I know
, and they shouldn't necessarilyhave to go the extra mile to To
prove their worth.
But if you do find yourself ina situation where you Perhaps
are not as visible as you wouldlike to be, then hopefully some
(01:28):
of the tips that I share withyou today are going to help you
to To to remedy that, but notjust, not not just that, but
also, I believe, that some ofthese tips that will help you to
be, you know, become moreconfident in yourself and what
you're doing.
And it's valuable to do this todevelop or some of these things
(01:48):
that I'm about to suggest, inorder for you just to simply
Develop your career and makeprogress, because it's always
important, whether you Want toget promotion or not, it's
always important to to feel asthough you're making progress.
So, yeah, it's important fromthat aspect, and this all stems
from, as well, my experience asa remote worker.
(02:10):
When I first started out, Ibecame, I guess, quite isolated,
and that was self-inflicted,that was because I wasn't doing
the right things back then.
And, of course, you learn fromyour experiences.
You, you, you develop and you,you improve, you iterate, for
example, and you not only learnfrom experiences, but you learn
(02:32):
from other people.
I've learned from a lot ofother people how to, or what to
do and what not to do, in orderto, sort of, can continue to
progress with, with my career.
And, as I said, documentingwork, progress and maintaining a
Sense of control, a sense ofaccomplishment, is one way in
which I've done that.
So I just want to share withyou a few tips not necessarily
(02:55):
tips, not necessarily every oneof these tips I've used myself,
but these are things that I'veeither used myself or I've
learned from others in order toto maintain, maintain that
progress and that sense ofcontrol and accomplishment.
So tip number one is is usingtask management tools.
Now, these tools might be toolsthat you use personally, or
(03:19):
these might be tools that I useon a corporate basis, within the
teams that you, you, work inand you I don't know.
Whatever you work, you may havean option to use a task
management tool or not, but evenif you do use a task, so even
if you Don't have a Sort of acorporate task management tool,
I'd always recommend Using yourown or finding your own.
(03:43):
And that's because you can usea task management tool to
document your daily tasks andyou should be doing that anyway,
even if it's on a piece ofpaper.
But you know I documenting iton a task management tool is,
for me, probably the optimumroute to take.
It can help you to, as I said,document your daily tasks,
(04:04):
priorities and see the progressthat you're making, and that can
help you to maintain visibilityin your work and provide a
sense of control.
I mean, like I said, even ifyou're not using a corporate
tool, if you're documenting thetasks that you're doing on your
own personal tool.
You'll then be able to go intoyour conversations and meetings
(04:26):
with your managers and tell themthe progress that you're making
and update them on what you'redoing and what's coming next and
have oversight of what'shappening in the future.
So, task management tools isnumber one.
Number two is creating anaccomplishment log.
Now, this is something thatI've advocated for years, and
(04:47):
that's because keeping anaccomplishment log, or a record
of achievements, as I call it,to document your completed tasks
and achievements and positivefeedback, is something that is a
great resource.
Now, that's because it can helpyou to see what you're
achieving and what you're doing,and achievements don't
necessarily have to be massivethings.
(05:11):
It could be small, iterativesteps that you're making, small
pieces of progress that you'remaking that you're documenting.
But you can also, as I said,log the bigger things as well as
the smaller things and, as Isaid, it can help you with your
confidence.
But have you ever found yourselfin a situation where you want
(05:36):
to change jobs, for whateverreason whether that's because
your role is being maderedundant, you've lost your job
that sort of job search scenariowhere you're probably panicking
and thinking you need to puttogether a resume Now, having an
accomplishment record or arecord of achievement.
If you do that as you go along,even start it today that can
(06:01):
really help you to put togethera resume of relevant information
, because you can then pick andchoose which of those
accomplishments that you add toyour resume.
And, of course, when you're ina situation where you're looking
for a new role, you're usuallyperhaps thinking of many things
at once and it's not easy tothen trawl your memory of what
(06:24):
happened one, two, three, four,five years ago in order to put
that on your resume.
So start today.
Even if you don't plan to leaveyour job immediately, even if
you don't plan to set up yourcompany immediately, even if you
don't plan to move on to yournext contract immediately, start
that record now in order to putit together so that when it
(06:48):
comes time for you to make thattransition, that accomplishment
record is there for you then tocherry pick the accomplishments
and achievements that you wantto put on your resume.
So that's number two.
Number three regular reviews.
And now regular.
By regular, I mean, I mean thatthat can.
What's regular to some peopleis not necessarily regular to
(07:10):
others.
So, for example, for me aregular review might be six
months or it might be threemonths.
To others it might be everyweek.
So I think you have to decidebetween yourself and your
manager when you want to do yourreviews and agree.
You know a reasonable timeframe in order to do that, and I
(07:32):
think that's important becausethen you can understand, you can
get feedback from your manager,you can reflect and talk about
the progress that you're making,the accomplishments that you've
recorded, identify areas forimprovement and set new goals.
But again, that's a good way toremain visible and, of course,
(07:57):
that feedback that you get fromyour manager whether it's good
or not so good is going to helpyou in the long run.
So regular reviews is anotherone.
Number four on my list issharing your progress.
So share your progress withyour team and your manager, your
employer, to maintainvisibility and ensure your
contributions are recognized andvalued.
(08:19):
So sharing could also extend toyour network as well.
If there are no privacy issuesor no sort of issues with,
obviously you need to get sortof permission from your employer
if you're sharing things thatare sort of sensitive from a
corporate standpoint, butfinding some way or means of
(08:42):
sharing them.
So that might be an internalemail, that might be internal PR
, it might be on a blog internalblog.
Then again, it might beexternal.
It might be via a sort of apublic blog.
It might be via LinkedIn, forexample.
You're sharing that progressthat you're making in order to
(09:06):
sort of build momentum, to buildcuriosity, and whatever it is
that you're sharing about.
That's really important toshare that so that people can
see what you're doing and makesure that obviously, it's being
shared with the right people aswell.
So great way of staying visibleis by sharing your progress and
(09:30):
, of course, hopefully that youhave the company that you work
for has internal mechanisms todo that and is on board with
doing that.
But of course, in someinstances, as I said before, you
may need to get permissionbefore you start to share stuff
online and wherever it may be.
So number five on my list isclosely linked to sharing
(09:51):
progress, and that iscelebrating achievements,
whether big or small.
So even what you might perceiveas a small step may be worth
celebrating, because someprogress is worth well, it's
worth its weight in gold.
Some progress is better than noprogress at all.
(10:12):
So even the small steps thatyou, all the things that you see
as small steps could be worthcelebrating, even if it's like I
don't know, give yourself asquare of chocolate or something
, I don't know, it could beanything like that.
So, but the bigger things forthe bigger picture, you need to
take time to celebrate yourachievements, whether that's
(10:32):
with yourself, with yourimmediate team, with the
business as a whole.
Again, if you have permission tocelebrate certain milestones,
if it's not sensitive, it's notcorporate sensitive, corporately
sensitive information it mightbe possible to celebrate those
things via social media again,to show what you're doing, and
(10:56):
that can really give you a senseof motivation, especially if
your colleagues are then chimingin and giving you
congratulations on whatever isthat you're celebrating.
So I think those are the fivethings I would certainly
strongly suggest that you dowhen it comes to documenting
(11:18):
your work, progress, to maintaina sense of control and a sense
of accomplishment, especially ifyou're working remotely, that
sense of visibility thatapparently is lacking in remote
work.
And, of course, you know, whenit comes to working alongside
people who work in office andthey may have that natural
(11:42):
visibility because they get tosee their peers and their
managers perhaps more often thatthis whole idea of what I'm
talking about today becomes allthe more important.
Well, I hope it's been helpfulfor you.
I wish you all the best withthat.
If you have any questions, asusual, I've left my contact
(12:03):
details in the show notes.
You can usually get me or reachme via LinkedIn.
If you just look below, there'sa link to my LinkedIn profile
just below.
Do say hello and, if thisepisode has been useful, please
consider sharing this with yournetwork.
Please consider dropping areview or a rating if it's been
of help as well, and, of course,I'm always open to feedback and
(12:26):
I'm open to suggestions ofepisodes on episodes to add to
the remote work life podcast.
So I look forward to hearingfrom you and I wish you all the
best.
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