Performance Reviews Are Basically a Memory Test

Adnan — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 23:14:04 +0000

Every performance review follows the same pattern for me.

For months, I'm busy delivering work, closing tickets, helping teammates, solving problems, and moving on to the next thing.

Then review season arrives.

Suddenly I'm searching through:

• Jira tickets
• Slack messages
• Teams chats
• Emails
• Documents

trying to remember what I actually achieved.

The frustrating part is that the work happened.

The evidence exists.

It's just scattered everywhere.

I've spoken to engineers, consultants, analysts and project managers who seem to face the same problem:

By the time promotions, salary reviews, self-evaluations or interviews come around, half of their accomplishments have already been forgotten.

Some people keep a brag document.

Some use Notion.

Some use spreadsheets.

Most start with good intentions and stop updating them after a few weeks.

I'm curious:

How do you keep track of achievements throughout the year?

Do you have a system that actually works?

I've been exploring this problem and built a very early prototype called Praxilo to test whether it's worth solving:

I'm not selling anything. I'm genuinely trying to understand whether this is a real problem or whether I've just managed my career badly.

Would love honest feedback.

DEV Community: Adnan