Start your annual review on day one

1. Start your record on day one. Write the year you want before it happens.
2. Find the dates. Learn when roles, promotions and pay are decided, and work back from them.
3. Enter it twice. What matters goes in your record and, the same day, in an email to your manager.
4. Close every month. One short note: three results, what is owed, and your objective.
5. Compare notes every quarter. Ask your manager how they see it while there is time to change it.

At year-end you write nothing new. You hand over the record.

Do this first. Open a document. Write today's date and five lines about the year you want (see "Day one" below). That is your first entry, and it takes fifteen minutes. Day one is whenever you start.

What this cannot do. It cannot promise a promotion or a raise. Those depend on your employer's budget, its open roles and its judgment. The protocol makes sure your case exists, that your manager knows it, and that it arrives before the decision.

From the manager's chair, most of what comes up is status: here is what I did this week. Every report sends it, so it is noise. Almost nobody sends a risk.

One person's status looks like another's, and none of it can be repeated in a meeting three months later. What a manager can use is short and dated: a result with its proof, a risk with a fix, a clear request.

The decisions about you are made in rooms you are not in. The only part of you that gets in is what your manager can carry and say. Your record is how you prepare that, a little each week.

Write the year you want. Imagine it is twelve months from now and the year went well. Write five lines in the past tense:

• What you delivered.
• What you learned.
• What you became known for.
• What changed for you: title, pay, scope, team or where you work.
• What you stopped doing.

Read the direction before you choose.

Clarify the mission, the vision and the strategic direction of your company and of your department. Your projects have to be in line with the bottom line.

Write three lines at the top of your record:

• The company this year: what it says it is trying to do. Look in the annual plan or the last all-hands meeting.
• Your department this year: its goals, and the numbers it reports.
• Your manager this year: ask, "What are you being measured on this year?"

Choose your projects against those three lines. For each project you want to work on, name the line it serves. A project that serves none of them is hard to defend when decisions are made, however well you do it. Find the line, or question the project.

Turn it into three to five objectives. Use your company's format if it has one. If it has none, write each as a result, a measure and a date. These are the headings of your record. Every later entry is filed under one of them.

Give each objective a business reason. Write one line: "This helps [the department's goal] by [what it changes]." An objective with no line is a warning.

Keep a heading called "other". Work that fits no objective goes there. If "other" fills up, either the plan is wrong or the work is. Raise it at the next monthly close.

Name what you want for yourself. Write one sentence with a date. It may be a promotion, a pay rise, a move, remote work or a special project. Say it to your manager in the first month:

Then ask two questions, and enter the answers:

• "What would you need to see from me?"
• "Who decides, and when?"

Write your record in your own words. Do not copy confidential company documents into it. Some entries are for you alone.

Decisions about new roles, promotions and pay are made at set moments, usually by people above your manager. If your manager does not have your case before that moment, the answer waits a year.

At one company I worked for, senior management met around March to decide which new roles to open. That was the moment my manager could argue for the role I wanted, if I had told him in time. If I had not, it was for the following year.

Every company has its own dates. Pay often has a different date from roles. Find yours in four ways:

1. Ask your manager. "When are roles and budgets for next year decided? When would you need my case to take it there?"
2. Ask HR, or read the review calendar. Many companies publish it.
3. Ask someone who was promoted last year. They know when their manager had to submit.
4. Watch for planning season. Budgets are usually set before the financial year starts.

Work backwards and enter four dates:

• The decision meeting.
• The day your manager needs your case.
• The day you give your manager a first draft.
• The day you start building it.

First, in your record. Add one line for each thing worth keeping, on the day it happens. It takes a minute:

Small things belong here too: a course you applied, an article that changed how you work, a thank-you from a customer. Most will never leave your record. Over a year they show you which work mattered.

At the end of the week, read the week's lines. They are the material for your one-on-one list.

Then, in your manager's. An entry that only you have seen counts for little at review time. The second entry is made in your one-on-one and in the email after it.

Bring the list to every one-on-one. Without it, a manager can talk until the end of the meeting. With it, they know there are items to get through, and whatever is left goes into an email afterwards.

Before the meeting, write three to five items in order of importance:

• A decision you need.
• A blocker. Describe what it costs and what you need, not who is at fault.
• A result your manager should know about.
• A risk, when you have a real one (see below).

In the first minute, say:

The same day, send the email:

That email is the second entry. It covers what you did not reach, and it is dated.

Enter what you are owed. "We will look at it next quarter" is a promise. So is "I will raise it with the director". Enter each one with the date, who said it and by when. Confirm it in the email. Enter what you promised in return.

In my career I watched people lose years of goodwill because the manager who had promised them the next role left in a reorganisation.

A promise that is not written down leaves with the person who made it.

Enter real risks. When you see something in your own area that could cost the business time, money, customers or quality, bring it with a proposed fix and put it in the email. A risk names a consequence. A complaint names a person. Do not invent a risk to have something to say.

In the first week of each month, close the one before. If you have a longer monthly one-on-one, use it for this.

1. Read the month's entries and pick the three that matter most.
2. Check what is owed, in both directions.
3. Write the monthly note. Send it, or bring it to the meeting.

An example:

Point 4 goes in every month. Your manager never has to wonder whether you still want it, and you hear early when something changes.

A closed month stays closed. If you got something wrong, add a dated correction. Do not rewrite it.

Fill one row for each objective:

Then compare notes. Your manager keeps a version of your year too, written down or not. Ask:

List the differences. Settle each one now, or enter it as an open point with a date.

Run the quarterly review like a one-on-one. Bring your points as a list, and send the email the same day with what was agreed and what you did not reach.

In 2010 the best performers I measured were not the most confident people. They were the best calibrated.

Calibrated means that their view of their own work matched the view of the person scoring it.

Check that the decision dates are still right. Priorities and calendars move during the year.

The small things that are often disregarded, such as an article read, a small achievement or a noteworthy event, compound into a massive advantage once they are compiled every month, every half year and every year.

The half-year review is a rehearsal for the year-end one. Prepare it the way you prepare a one-on-one, with six months of material.

Compile the half year. Read your six monthly notes and your two quarter tables. For each objective, write two lines: where it stands, and the entry that proves it. Note which work turned out to matter. That tells you which projects to keep, which to drop and which to ask for.

Check your calibration. Pick two or three skills your role is judged on. Score yourself on each. Then ask your manager to score the same ones:

Where the two scores differ, you have your development plan for the second half.

Bring the list. Put your points in order:

• Where each objective stands, with its proof.
• What is off track, and what you are doing about it.
• What is owed, in both directions.
• Your own objective, and whether the decision dates have moved.

Then ask:

If the answer is vague, ask for one specific example, and a date to come back to it.

Send the email the same day. It holds what was said, the scores, and every point you did not reach.

Then re-plan in the open. Revise the year page. Keep the original and add the revision with its date. If your objective will not happen in this cycle, say so, and ask when the next date is. If your decision date has already passed, this review is where next year's case starts.

Write one page that someone else can read aloud in a room you are not in. It holds:

• The objective you named in the first month.
• The criteria your manager or employer has confirmed.
• Your three strongest entries. For each: what you did, the proof, and its limits.
• What is still missing, in your own view.
• Your request.

Prepare for three answers:

Send the email the same day. Record what your manager confirmed separately from what you proposed. The same page works for a pay rise, a move or a change in how you work.

The review conversation is not the beginning of the process. It is the receipt.

Write nothing new. Take the monthly notes and the quarter tables. For each objective, write four lines:

• The result.
• The entries that prove it, by date.
• Its limits.
• What comes next.

State the limits plainly. A review that admits what it cannot show is easier to believe.

Fill in your company's form from those lines. If the form asks for a self-evaluation, the four lines are your answer for each objective. There are twelve worked examples.

Bring the list to the review. Nothing on it should be new to your manager. You have said your objective every month, and each result reached their inbox the day it happened. Put in order:

• The three results that mattered most this year.
• What was promised to you and is still open.
• Your objective, and what was decided about it.
• What your manager would need to see next year.

Send the email the same day. Record what your manager confirmed separately from what you proposed: the rating, the decision on pay or role if there is one, and anything promised for next year, with its date.

Then carry forward. Unfinished objectives, open promises and next year's dates go on a new page. That page is next year's day one.

Your record also tells you early when the answer is no. The signs are a "not yet" with no criteria, a decision with no date, and the same open point at every monthly close. Then you have a decision of your own to make, and a year of dated work in your own words to make it with.

If your performance is questioned.

A performance improvement plan should never surprise you.

It often comes in three stages. Read them from your side of the desk, and act at the first:

The monthly note and the quarterly comparison are where the first stage shows early.

Too much work. Signs to take seriously: new work arrives and nothing is removed, evenings and weekends become routine, and your list only grows. Bring the whole list to your one-on-one:

Enter the answer and confirm it by email.

Mistreatment. A separate page, to be written with Remy's content and a qualified review. Until it exists, this page says only the following. Keep a private, dated record on your own device. Rules and protections differ by country, so get advice that fits where you work. Do not carry it alone.

My manager cancels our one-on-ones. Send the list as an email anyway and ask for fifteen minutes. The monthly note still goes out.

Will this look pushy? The entries are short and factual, and most of them are results and decisions your manager needs. You say your objective once a month, not once a week.

My company has no review process. Then the dates are informal, and someone still decides pay and roles at some point in the year. Ask: "When do you set pay for next year?"

I am starting in the middle of the year. Day one is today. Enter earlier work only where you still have proof, and mark it as reconstructed.

Is it acceptable to keep a file like this? It is a record of your own work, in your own words. It holds no confidential documents. Everything in it that concerns your manager has already been sent to them.

Estimates. Remy to confirm from his own practice.

One file with a tab for each part of the template. It counts your entries for each objective, lists what is still owed, and fills in the months once you enter your start date. Get the workbook.

Everything on this page is free and stays free. I also plan a coach that runs the protocol with you. It would keep your record, prepare each one-on-one list, draft the emails and the monthly note, and remind you before your dates. Your record would stay on your own device and never be shared with an employer. It is not built yet. See the terms and pre-order.

This protocol is open. Copy it, adapt it and share it, with a link back to this page. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Written by Remy Bricaud. For twenty years he built the systems that evaluate people at work, and managed and reviewed hundreds of people.