pile of brown wooden blocks
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko / Unsplash

Weekly updates aren’t just a routine check-in—they’re a way to advocate for your work, track your growth, and surface impact that might otherwise go unnoticed.

When it comes to performance reviews, compensation conversations, or promotion cycles, it’s often much easier to make a strong case when there’s a clear and consistent log of what you’ve been working on and what you’ve overcome.

These updates give your manager (and anyone they report to) a better view of your contributions over time.

Not everything happens in a public Slack channel (or whichever chat system you use). Sometimes it’s a quiet pairing session, a direct message that leads to a great idea, or an unexpected roadblock you navigated through. It could be an in-person meeting as well. If those things aren’t documented somewhere, they can be hard for others and even for yourself to recognize or remember later.

You’re the strongest advocate for your own career, and these updates are one of the best ways to tell your story as it unfolds.

✨ A quick personal example: I was once denied a promotion during my first attempt. After that, I made a habit of documenting my accomplishments, the challenges I tackled, and how I grew through them. When the next cycle came around, my manager had everything they needed to build a strong case and I got promoted. Looking back, I wish I had been capturing those updates earlier (especially knowing how visible they are up the management chain when using Lattice).

📝 My Weekly Updates Template

Every Monday morning, I have the following prompts for my direct reports which you can adapt for yourself as an individual as well:

  • What did you accomplish last week?
    • (Celebrate your wins 🎉 and give a shoutout to collaborators 🤝)
  • What are you focusing on this week?
  • Are there any blockers or concerns?

The goal is to keep it lightweight and consistent. The updates build a narrative of your impact—not just for others to see, but for you to own and reflect on over time.