Keeping a Work Journal

You might feel like you have plenty to do already and the idea of adding one more thing to your list is ridiculous, but bear with me for a minute here. This simple task could save you hours and hours and hours of time. Seriously.

A work journal is basically a “to-do” list with all the items crossed off (you know how awesome – and rare – that is). It is an account of your accomplishments, successes, failures, projects, programs, committee work, training sessions and anything else that you can think of. This valuable document will help you when it is time for your annual performance review, when you need to write a bio (and can’t think of one interesting thing you’ve done, much less two) or when you apply for a new job.

I am sure that you already have an updated copy of your resume handy (good for you!), a work journal is not meant to replace that document. Your resume is a brief glimpse of your talents, skills and abilities; a work journal is a broader representation of your professional life, you have more room so you can talk about ALL of the wonderful stuff that you do. Hopefully your career in librarianship will be a long one, and over that great span of time, you will forget things. A lot of things. And those things might not seem important now, but eventually someone will ask and you will wonder what exactly was the opening day budget that you spent for that new library or exactly how many pages did you supervise back in 2003.

You can keep your entries brief – if you are sure that you will understand them years from now. Six years ago, while at my previous job, I wrote “Port Hueneme A to Z” and I thought I would remember what that was. I don’t. I had to ask a former co-worker to get more information about what turns out to be an awesome intergenerational grant program that I worked on just before I left the library. That grant program isn’t on my resume and if I hadn’t seen that brief reminder in my work journal it would be completely forgotten. Why do I need to remember it? I can use that experience to create new programs at my current library – that program was fun and successful. I can also mention it on my resume if the job I am applying for values intergenerational work or grant programs.

I would recommend setting aside time at the end of each week to jot down a few things in your journal. Even if they don’t seem big or important, they are accomplishments, they are things that you have done and they are valuable. Over time, they will add up to something substantial. You can hand write your entries or type them up, whichever is more comfortable for you – and whichever you are more likely to do. Keep it informal, you are the only one that is going to read it. The most important thing: do it.

Here is my work journal from last month:

April 2011:

• Submitted “Books for Babies” grant to Target
• Attended Windows 7 training
• Launched “Get Moving” & “Couch to 5K” programs for the Wellness Committee
• Organized summer staff training for 2011
• Organized shelf reading project for summer 2011
• Started as an ALSC blogger
• Appointed to the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee
• Created “In My Garden” shared storytime box
• Spring Break Smorgasbord programs – Art Room Extended & Letterboxing

I didn’t follow my own advice here and I should really expand on a few of these because in six years I won’t remember what the “Get Moving” program was or what exactly that “Books for Babies” grant included. While some of that will be remedied with the documents that I keep in my portfolio (a topic that might just come up in a future blog post), I should really provide a lot more details here. I’ll have to do that right away, Friday is my day to journal.