5 mistakes to avoid with your brag document

You just saw a TikTok or Reddit post about brag documents, and you can’t wait to get started.

But you’re thinking through all the possible scenarios of how to get started and probably feeling a little overwhelmed.

The good news is it’s easier than you think. But there are some common mistakes you need to avoid to make your brag doc actually useful. Otherwise, you’ll set it up, use it for a month, and never touch it again.

Here are five of the most common mistakes I see people make when creating brag documents, and how to avoid them.

1. Not having a structure

My first brag document was a Google Doc with a list of accomplishments. It had as much structure as a melted ice cube.

But for a brag document to be useful, you need to be able to easily find relevant info. Otherwise, it’s just an endless list of stuff you’ve done. And relying on “CMD + F” to search through big documents can take forever.

Instead of treating your brag document like a junk drawer, be intentional about how you organize it. 

If you’re using a Google Doc, something as simple as using subheadings for different sections and putting dates on everything is a good first step. 

If you’re using a spreadsheet or Notion, add some categories to make it easier to filter your wins.

But the best solution is to use a tool like Brag Doc that makes organizing your wins simple. You can filter your wins by:

• Tags
• Dates
• Keywords
• Jobs

This is really helpful for performance reviews and interviews. 

For instance, if your job does quarterly performance reviews, you can filter to just the wins you added during that specific date range.

When it comes to job interviews, you might want to recall a few specific examples relevant to the role you’re applying to. 

For instance, a project manager might want examples of how they implemented automation before. They could filter all their wins to only show the ones tagged “automation”.

If things aren’t easy to find, you won’t use it. Trust me.

2. Overcomplicating the process

Some structure is necessary. But you shouldn’t spend more time setting up your brag document than you do using it.

This is my biggest issue with using Notion to create a brag document. The flexibility it gives you is great. You can pretty much build it however you want. But some people need guardrails, or their creativity can lead them down an endless rabbit hole.

If you’re the type of person who tries every shade of purple to find the right background color, spends 30 minutes picking fonts, and obsesses over every detail on projects, I wouldn’t recommend building a brag document from scratch.

Either use a template (you can find some on Etsy and Notion) or, better yet, use Brag Doc. We did the heavy lifting of including the must-haves, while also giving you some flexibility through the tagging system to make it function the way you want.

3. Storing your doc somewhere you don’t own

Before building Brag Doc, I did a ton of research into how people build their brag documents. 

I noticed some people created a new brag document every time they started a new job, and formatted them differently based on what their manager wanted.

Two red flags here:

1. A brag document should be made for you
2. You should have one brag document that you use throughout your career

Basically, create your brag document in a tool you can use whenever you want, even when you change jobs.

If your company uses a tool to help track goals and performance, that’s fine.

But your brag document needs to be separate. You never want to be in a situation where you change jobs and lose access to all the wins you documented in a previous role.

My suggestion is to store your brag doc in your personal Google Drive, Notion, Notes, or our tool. And if you’re using a tool like Brag Doc, use your personal email, not your work one. 

4. Only documenting big wins

A common question I hear about brag documents is, “What should I put in it?”

Most people default to just documenting the “hits”. The times when you did something monumental or completed a huge project. Those are important, but the real gold is the smaller moments most people don’t even think to document.

I’m not talking about the tasks you do on a daily basis. I’m talking about the things you do that make an impact, but aren’t headliners. Those are usually the things that you forget about and really need to start documenting.

For instance, fixing broken systems or setting up new processes. To make it easy to decide what’s worth putting in your brag doc, I made the Small/Medium/Big/Beyond framework.

Here’s how it works:

If your brag doc is full of big wins, think back to the things you’ve done that fit into the small, medium, or beyond categories.

The reality is that big wins don’t happen that often. And the smaller wins will help you tell the full story about how awesome you are during performance reviews and interviews.

5. Not updating it

We’ve all been there. You’re excited and energized to start a new habit. But a month later, that excitement starts to fizzle, and you completely give up.

That’s what happens with brag docs. You start strong, but one week you forget to add anything. The next week, you do something else worth documenting and tell yourself, I’ll write it down later. But later turns into never.

Updating your brag doc is closer to journaling than hitting the gym. It’s not that people lose motivation. It just falls off the radar when other things feel more urgent.

That’s why you need to set up reminders to check in and document your achievements.

One easy fix is to create a weekly recurring calendar event to add some wins.

If you use Brag Doc, you can set up weekly email reminders to add any wins from the week.

You might not have something worth adding each week, but in my experience, you have more to document than you think.

The best way to avoid these mistakes

You’ve probably caught on by now. Brag Doc is designed to remove the friction that makes people stop using their brag documents.