JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
Walt Whitman once said, "If you done it, it ain't bragging."
With that thought in mind, it is crucial that every service member create and maintain what is known as a "Brag File." When it comes time for midterm counseling, evaluations or perhaps your end-of-tour award, the only person who truly knows everything that you've accomplished is ... you.
Quite frankly, your supervisors do not have the time to adequately track everything you do on a daily basis, both in and out of the office. So it is up to you to take a little time out of your schedule every week to jot down your personal and professional accomplishments.
The question then becomes: "What should I keep in my brag file?" The short answer is "everything," but keeping track of the following items alone will help keep you way ahead of the competition: any qualifications you've received, your performance on graded exercises, correspondence courses you've completed, off-duty education, inspection results, new programs you helped develop, collateral duties, awards or distinctions you received. Also don't forget to include any volunteer work you've done - community involvement goes a long way.
There is certainly a fine art to writing a good evaluation it is important to remember that if you do not include specifics, your write-up will most likely be seen as nothing more than "fluff." In other words, do not simply include what you've done, but also how your work positively impacted the command. For example, don't just say "Petty Officer Jones helped develop a great new inventory tracking system." Instead, write: "Petty Officer Jones played a key role in developing the command's new inventory tracking system, directly saving the Navy X amount of dollars and X man-hours each week." If you can't substantiate your accomplishments, chances are your write-up won't count for much.
A brag file is not difficult to maintain, but it does take a conscious effort on your part to
keep it up-to-date on at least a weekly basis. If you can spend 10 to 15 minutes a week writing down what you've accomplished, you will not have to pull your hair out trying to think of a year's worth of accomplishments when it's time to provide evaluation inputs. In the end, you should be able to put at least two or three items in your brag file each week or you are not really trying ... or you're not doing your job.