The more I talked with different engineers in the industry, the more I realised that only a few track or document their growth. I also did not track1 my learning, so I focused on learning as many tools as possible.
As time passed, and I engaged with more experienced engineers, it was clear that a common good trait was that they would do was to keep track of their process and daily/weekly wins.
Why track your progress?
You may have different reasons why you want to write down your high/lowlights, and some would want to do it:
To ensure that they are on top of their daily tasks
To write up reports
For discussions in 1:1 with managers
Regardless of the reason, all the reasons above are still good reasons for you to at least get into the habit of tracking your progress. I personally started doing it more often to keep my manager informed and brainstorm ideas.
Initially, it seemed as if I was wasting my time, as I thought that not everything should be relevant to share or that I should always have very distinct learnings. Yet, when I revisited the older notes, I realised the growth and how much I was learning as time went by.
That boosted my confidence in the topics I am faced with on a daily basis and also improved my position in many discussions with other team members, as I didn't have to rely on my memory and talk from a good reference point2 .
Lastly, keeping track of my progress helps to ensure that I am well aware of my career goals and the opportunities for growth.
What to track and when to do it?
You may be asking now:
What should I include in my journal?
In which frequency should I do it?
There's no one-size-fits-all approach, as it all depends on you and your current scope. In my personal case, I keep a small notepad where I dump all my daily to-dos and expand my weekly journal from there.
I also schedule at least 45 minutes every Friday to write a more comprehensive note containing all the week's highs and lows. The topics I cover are:
Highlights: describing what went well, and this also includes learnings;
Lowlights/Blockers: what are my current challenges and items that I may or may not need assistance with;
Discussion points: this may not be applicable for everyone, but I use this to discuss the points I want to debate with my managers and other ICs3 on the team
Overall, journaling or writing up your daily/weekly/monthly updates is an excellent way to observe where you can improve and what you are already doing well.
I'd encourage you to create a small routine in which you can write, review, and retain this to help you become aware of where you are in your career and identify what's next.
Track: it will be used interchangeably to reference a journal or note.
The Pragmatic Engineer — Topic 22: Engineering Daybooks
IC: Individual Contributor
Good stuff. We do have a daily activities channel where we need to log all our activities during the day, It's cool to keep everybody aware of what we're working on, especially being a 'remote-first' company. Also, I had a weekly habit of summarizing what we accomplished every Friday or monday; I need to get back to it.