Zack Rippy

So, you work hard at your job, right? You come in early, leave late, assist with large projects and are generally a productive emplyoyee…but can you prove it? Could you demonstrate the to your employer the value you bring to the organization?

Where I work, we have two ticketing systems. In theory, all the work I do should be documented twice, but that is not always the case. For example, last week, I spent numerous hours on a relatively high-visibilty project, yet it was not a ticketed request. It was an ongoing, internal project. Regardless, I should be able to prove my work and show what I have contributed.

My personal solution is very low-tech and simple. I started keeping a basic Excel spreadsheet with the brief rundown of whatever work I accomplish. If it is a ticketed task, then I only annotate the ticket number(s). If it isn’t, I provide an abbreviated synopsis. A co-worker of mine writes down everything in steno pads. There are numerous time management and time tracking solutions available, but we cannot install applications on our machines and our web activity is monitored/curtailed, so many of them are not options. My little spreadsheet works just fine.

Regardless of how you do it, I definitely recommend you implement some method of keeping track of your efforts in the workplace. You never know when it might come in handy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 7:13 am and is filed under Off Topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.