How To Regularly Rate Your Performance

December 10th 2007

Recently I read a great article by Steve Pavlina about moving from a 7 to a 10. This struck a chord with me because if you don’t already know I use a ratings system in my weekly planner to track my performance. I consider using some form of ratings system a key component of any approach, so in this post I thought I would describe the best way for implementing one into your system. If you use a similar system share your experiences in the comments!

Choosing a ratings system
There are a number of approaches that you can choose from but it’s important to select the one that works best for you. Some examples include:

Grades (D, C, B, A, A*)
Percentages (29%, 50%, 85%)
Numerical (7 out of 10, 3 out of 5)
Words (poor, average, great)

From my personal experience however, you want to avoid choosing too broad a scale. This is the primary reason I chose a 1-to-5 rating over a 1-to-10 rating, and the reason why I discourage something like a 1-to-100 rating or a percentage rating, unless you choose to round figures up (60%, 70%, 80% and so on). The bigger the scale the harder it is to give yourself a meaningful score. For example, what sort of logic would you use to determine whether you get a 71, 72 or 73 rating? When I originally used to do a 1-to-10 scale, I had a hard time objectively determining whether I had done a 6 or 7, a 4 or 5 and even an 8 or 9.

Applying meaning to your rating system
Whatever rating system you choose, it will be meaningless if you don’t determine what the rankings mean. The most simple approach is to have a few words describing what sort of performance you need to have to achieve each score. With my 1-to-5 rating I use the following:

1 - Abysmal (little to no work)
2 - Poor (did some work, but less than average)
3 - Average (what I do on average each week)
4 - Good (pushed myself to do that bit more than usual)
5 - Excellent (excelled in my efforts)

Only problem is it can be quite simplistic and I’ve sometimes found I had to score myself based on a gut feeling about my performance rather than based on an objective review of my efforts. The opposite approach is to go into detail, almost to the extent you would find in the way an exam is marked or a personal review is performed. It’s possible to do an entire sheet defining what exactly you have to achieve on each rank to achieve that score. As a basic example under my 1-to-5 scale as an home owner, to get a score of 3 for the week I would have to make sure my home was fundamentally clean and I had de-cluttered at least one area each day. This is what I usually achieve with just a bit of effort anywhere, hence the fact it is the average rating. To get a 4 I would have to expand on that and also do a thorough cleaning (windows, skirting boards, etc) of every room during the week. However the problem with this approach is that it’s not straightforward to come up with a totally objective description that covers all eventualities. Plus, is it really necessary to go to such detail? Try experimenting with both methods to see what works for you.

Implementing your ratings system
You’ve chosen your ratings system and how you are going to judge your performance, but how are you going to implement it? Firstly, I should explain how I do it. If you view my weekly planner you will see that I track the ratings for each of my roles and responsibilities over a four week period (there was no benefit to me from tracking a longer period). However, you can also track your overall performance for each day or week, it really depends on how your system is set up (my system is built around my list of roles hence my focus on them).