There are some leadership problems that are genuinely complicated.

Keeping track of how your people are performing isn't one of them.

Yet most leaders don't document anything until they think they have a problem.

Then suddenly they're six months into managing someone, their gut is telling them something isn't right, and they're trying to reconstruct half a year of performance from memory.

When did we first talk about this? Has this happened three times or seven? Did I clearly give them feedback? Maybe I'm being too hard on them. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

None of those questions should be difficult to answer. But they are when you've kept no record of what actually happened.

That's why I keep a running performance log for the people I manage and suggest the businesses we work with do the same.

Nothing elaborate. An iPhone note will do.

When something meaningful happens, write down the date and enough context that you'll know what you're looking at three months from now. That might be a miss you addressed, a commitment they made, a piece of feedback you gave, a moment of great judgment, or something you want to follow up on.

Then move on with your day.

That's it. It doesn't have to become some big weekly ritual you have to pretend you're excited about.

And I can already feel your resistance through the screen, radiating some version of, "I don't want one more thing to manage or do."

Neither do I.

But let's be serious about the tradeoff.

What's more overwhelming: taking 30 seconds to write down what happened while it's fresh?

Or realizing six months from now that you've been having the same conversation with someone and have no idea how many times it's actually happened?

We let perceived friction stop us from doing incredibly simple things that would make us better leaders, then pay for that friction ten times over later.

You're already doing the hard part: having the conversation, giving the feedback, dealing with the missed deadline, noticing the great work, and managing the person.

Writing down what happened is how you keep receipts.

And those receipts give you something incredibly valuable over time: context.

Six months from now, you don't have to rely on your mood, frustration, or memory to decide how someone is performing. You can look.

Maybe they struggled during their first month, took the feedback seriously, and have been crushing it ever since.

Maybe they've quietly become one of the most dependable people on your team, and now you have specific examples of why instead of some generic "you're doing a great job."

Or maybe you've had the same conversation seven times and nothing has materially changed.

Now you know.

That context makes performance reviews easier, feedback more specific, recognition more meaningful, and legitimate performance problems much harder to rationalize away.

You don't have to tell someone they "always" or "never" do something, and you don't need another six months to convince yourself a pattern is real. You can point to what actually happened.

This doesn't need software, a dashboard, or another system.

It can be a note in your phone with the date, what happened, what was expected, what was discussed, and what happened next.

Part of managing people is making decisions about them: whether someone needs more support, whether they're growing, whether they're ready for more responsibility, whether they're consistently missing the standard, or whether they're still right for the role.

Those decisions deserve better information than whatever you happen to remember when you're finally forced to make them.

Your gut might eventually tell you there's a problem with someone.

Good leadership starts long before that moment.

Keep the receipts.