Completing a self-evaluation involves time spent reflecting. Ideally, you’ll set aside at least an hour to think about your past work.

Here’s an easy way to write a self-assessment based on facts, not feelings: check your emails, Slack channels, Teams messages, and in-doc comments to see what others have said about you. If you’re not already sorting your communications into “positive feedback” and “constructive feedback” folders, now is a terrific time to start. That way, when self-evaluation season rolls around, you have plenty of inspiration.

Above all else, a well-written self-evaluation is honest. An assessment that bends the truth won’t benefit you or your superiors or collaborators—it’ll only make it harder to create an accurate, useful development plan. Avoid embellishing or twisting the facts.

A good self-evaluation also includes metrics or statistics (when applicable) and a tentative plan for improvement. Don’t worry if your development plan isn’t complete—you and your manager can work on that together.

While the exact content of your self-evaluation will depend on your role and industry, a typical self assessment template should give you some prompts for inspiration. If you need more ideas, reflect on the positives and negatives of times when you:

- Took charge of a project

- Participated in a group setting

- Gave or received feedback

- Felt proud of your work

- Felt like you could have done better

- Received critical comments from a client or customer

Lean on these real moments as a basis for your evaluation and use “I” statements to ground your thoughts.