Buffs, debuffs, and things powering your performance (and why you should actively be looking for them)

I came across this article from the gaming world this week and it maps directly onto something we track in the Accomplishment Tracker.

What Are Buffs and Debuffs?

In games, a “buff” is an effect that boosts your character’s performance. Speed, strength, output. A “debuff” does the opposite. It drains you, slows you down, works against you.

Now map that onto your working life.

Your buffs are the things your employer provides that make you more effective. A manager who communicates clearly. Access to the right tools. Training. Being trusted with information early. These things shape your performance every single day, whether you are naming them or not.

Buffs are like Chrome extensions for your browser. They do not change what the browser is, they just make it capable of so much more. And just like extensions, once you know they exist you cannot imagine working without them.

Then you have the debuffs. Poor sleep and saying yes to too many tasks will drain your energy fast. A manager who does not communicate clearly leaves you constantly second guessing. Being left out of key conversations means you are always playing catch up. Identifying these energy vampires is the first step to doing something about them.

What is the Accomplishment Tracker and why does it matter?

The Accomplishment Tracker is one of our core tools inside The Officials and it is built specifically for assistants. Not a smile file. Not a brag book. Something smarter.

Most assistants only think about tracking their work when a performance review is looming. But your Accomplishment Tracker is not just for review season. It is for the days when you feel invisible, undervalued, or just plain exhausted. Open it and remind yourself that you are crazy talented and the receipts are right there.

It is also your career insurance. Evidence of what you have delivered, what you have handled, and what you have made possible. Go and check it out and see why ours beats anything else out there.

What are contributions and why should you be tracking them?

In our Accomplishment Tracker, we call these contributions and we know most of you aren’t tracking them. For example, if an Office Manager was in charge of an Office Move and noting it in their Accomplishment Tracker, under contributions they might put ample budget and autonomous decision making. These are the buffs the company gave them that made success possible. Feeding those back to your manager tells them exactly what they contributed to make that project work, so they know what to provide next time.

I was recently in a corporate training session introducing the Accomplishment Tracker to an admin team. When we got to the contributions section, their manager noted that it was a great way to get feedback from her team, something she said she sometimes struggled to get. Win win!

Your prompt

Open your Accomplishment Tracker. Look at your contributions. What is boosting you right now? What debuffs are quietly working against you? And what is missing that should be there?

And if you have not started your Accomplishment Tracker yet, today is a good day.

The Accomplishment Tracker and the Gaming session replay both require Premium HQ membership to access. Premium HQ is where the best admin pros in the world hang out and level up. Are you in?