Make your 2019 review easier on yourself. Start a folder called Accomplishments. Move any emails that you receive from your colleagues or boss praising you throughout the year. When you finish a project or complete something that you're proud of, send yourself an email with some bullet points and file it in the folder. Then you can scan through those emails and pick out your high points for your annual review.

If you have all that compiled, you could potentially also hire someone like a resume writer to put your evaluation together for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The opportunity to write your own evaluation is fantastic -- I always do it, and I am shocked when some of my reports don't do it.

First, it doesn't have to be flowery. A list of your accomplishments should be adequate. Self-evaluations exist because your boss can't remember what 15 different people did for a whole year: you need to remind her. Obviously, this means you should keep your own list, or brag sheet, during the year. If you haven't been, make that a new practice for 2019.

Second, it sounds like you are being given company goals to meet. This is great: it means you have an outline for what they want to hear. Take your brag sheet and sort it into their categories.

Third, Amazon is full of books on how to write these better, most available on Kindle for immediate download. Go crib some phrases. I have a paper copy of "Performance Appraisal Phrasebook" on my desk to help me write evaluations for other people.

This is very good advice. I’m not OP but a lot of times my accomplishments just sound like my regular tasks. For instance, I successfully coordinated the annual meeting. That’s not an accomplishment but just me doing my job, right?

It is an accomplishment. Why wouldn't it be? An accomplishment is something your organization needed or wanted done, that you did or caused to happen. Your write-up should focus on the outcome if you can, on progress if the task isn't done, and on effort or damage control if it wasn't successful. For example:
"Successfully coordinated annual meeting, including well-received guest speaker, and ensured catering remained within budget. CEO remarked on how smoothly the event ran."
"Completed arrangements for upcoming annual meeting, including booking guest speaker and providing a range of catering options for decision by next week."
"Prepared multiple decision packages for annual meeting, including five catering options and three possible guest speakers."
"Successfully coordinated annual meeting. Created last-minute photo slide show after guest speaker cancelled without notice, and assisted financial officer with subsequent questions about speaker fee."

Anonymous wrote:The opportunity to write your own evaluation is fantastic -- I always do it, and I am shocked when some of my reports don't do it.

First, it doesn't have to be flowery. A list of your accomplishments should be adequate. Self-evaluations exist because your boss can't remember what 15 different people did for a whole year: you need to remind her. Obviously, this means you should keep your own list, or brag sheet, during the year. If you haven't been, make that a new practice for 2019.

Second, it sounds like you are being given company goals to meet. This is great: it means you have an outline for what they want to hear. Take your brag sheet and sort it into their categories.

Third, Amazon is full of books on how to write these better, most available on Kindle for immediate download. Go crib some phrases. I have a paper copy of "Performance Appraisal Phrasebook" on my desk to help me write evaluations for other people.

This is very good advice. I’m not OP but a lot of times my accomplishments just sound like my regular tasks. For instance, I successfully coordinated the annual meeting. That’s not an accomplishment but just me doing my job, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 I'm with you, OP. I've been nominated for an award. My reward is that now I need to write a bio and essay that meets very specific requirements to support it. It all feels very awkward and fake. Plus I'm not really anxious for the attention. Thanks boss!

As a boss, I can say that I have worried over whether or not to submit people for awards. I have a very, very capable but very, very introverted employee who had an amazing year, and I had the opportunity to nominate them for an award that included a cash bonus. Ultimately, I decided that they money was worth the five minutes they'd have to spend walking up to accept the award (thankfully, I wrote the rec - no need for self-promotion), and basically told them as much. They won, blazed red for about five minutes shaking the executive officers hand at the reception, and cashed their check. And agreed it was worth the momentary discomfort.

I think you gave a pep talk to my boss. Sigh. I'll do it. I know it is good for our organization. But I will be dragging my feet every step of the way!