Detailed work tracking in tech has a bad reputation as either being a way for management to micromanage employees or a necessary evil for agile development. However, you, as an [[IC]] can also use it to your benefit. Here are 3 benefits I find in tracking my work meticulously. 1. **Workload balancing.** Sometimes, you might be working on so many projects at once that you might burn yourself out without even realizing it. Your management wouldn't even be aware that you are overloaded because communicating that is entirely up to you. But if you are diligent about tracking your progress, then it makes it easy for your to realize and feel comfortable with the progress you are making, stop yourself from burning out and give you an easy path to asking for help load balancing. 2. **Simplify communication about your workload with your management.** No need to keep sending emails and summarizing what you are doing. A simple list of what you are working on with any level of data you want to put in there. 3. **A place to keep your notes.** Work item discussions are a great place to keep your notes. If you change projects, need to onboard a new team mate for that work load balancing we mentioned earlier, all the notes and info will be invaluable, both to you and the new owners of the project. Because of these 3 reasons, I have tried my best to track all my work as effectively as I can, even as far as creating internal tools at work that assist me in making this a useful exercise.