There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about Musk, Doge, and that horrible “Send me your 5 accomplishments” emails that everyone in government is getting. The world is spinning sideways and folks are rightly angry, but I’ve got some advice for anyone in a corporate job who will listen:
Do this anyways.
I started writing task reports years ago while dealing with a nightmare boss. They were a way of managing up, and I do it now with my current (Awesome!) boss too. Every friday, I compile a report that looks like this:
Hi boss, here’s my task report for $date to $date:
- Topic – Summary of what was done
- Topic2 – Summary of what was done
- Topic3 – Summary of what was done
For next week, my priorities are:
- Topic4 – Plan
- Topic5 – Plan
- Topic6 – Plan
Thanks,
Me
I add as many bullet points as needed to cover whatever I did that week, and try to keep the next week down to less than three items (something always comes up anyways). Next week, whatever I put down for priorities becomes my top priority, so I can put them in the top half at the end of the week.
This worked wonders when dealing with my micromanaging moron of a boss. In fact, it worked SO well that he asked me to stop (I didn’t). He said he’d gained confidence that I didn’t need the oversight. In truth he was pissed off that every time he wanted to chew me out, the answer to whatever he was mad about was already in the report.
This tactic works even better when working for someone sane. My current boss never asks me what I’m working on because he already knows. If I’ve got a blocker, he knows about it. If he wants the status of something he checks the email.
When annual reviews come up, I go to my sent folder and pick out a page of “best of” entries from these reports to remind my boss of major accomplishments for the year, which leads to glowing reviews.
Everything going on with the US Government right now is a complete nightmare, and I have deep sympathies for anyone who’s manager thinks taking cues from the current administration is a good idea, but seriously, this tactic works wonders on incompetent managers.
It makes “what are you working on?” their problem, not yours.