The idea behind the work log is to annotate your direct and indirect impact in a document to keep track of your deliveries over time. This is a simple habit that allows you to record day by day what you do at work.
Once this is established, it will be a tremendous helper for the redaction of your Self Assessments and even mid-year and annual reviews.
I recommend tools like Google Documents or Notion pages. Use something super easy and fast to load. Do not over-engineer it. Keep it dead simple. Some people even use a physical notebook. Whatever floats your boat.
If you are getting started with this, set up a recurrent event in your routine whether it being daily or weekly, usually around Fridays’ afternoons. If you struggle with this kind of habit, I would suggest the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
New in your company? Great, start from day 1. At first, you will probably annotate too many or even irrelevant items and that is okay. Over time you will understand what matters for you. Better to have too many than too few annotations.
It can be a simple bugfix, a dependency update, a feature, a vulnerability fix, a new service, a performance update, whether it be on a backend service or a CSS animation, a reduction in costs, a project delivery, etc.
Obviously, a project delivery is what you are aiming for. But do not underestimate the little things. When it comes to a certain level of delivery, try to apply metrics, it will have a greater impact on your Self Assessments.
Reminder: you can write down anything that was done in common with fellow co-workers.
The impact of a software engineer is not 100% linked to his/her deliveries in production. It can also be comprised of indirect impacts such as mentoring more junior developers, doing a presentation on a tech topic for your team or organization, teaching something at different levels, helping team members in some ways, writing documentation, doing a course, giving feedback, update team rituals, etc.
It can be very broad and also valuable. Talk to your manager if you feel like doing more in parallel to your daily tasks. The more you will grow in your organization, the more this will matter. Staff engineers write way fewer lines of code than engineers or senior engineers for example.
The model that follows uses a per-week format. But feel free to adapt. Do not forget to use clear dates, this helps gather weeks and months for Self Assessments. One sentence per item usually starting with a verb.
Add numbers/metrics if possible and link relevant documents that might add details to your statement. It can be a GitHub PR link, a Jira task, a Google doc, a Datadog chart, etc. I also write down coworkers’ names and positions when relevant.
Since this document is not meant to be shared, you can organize it pretty any way you like.
Important, I highly recommend past actions, things that are done, completed, or maybe in progress. But do not use this document to write down things you plan to do.