---
name: The Work Year
category: career
tools_required: [Any AI chat, and one running note you keep all year]
cost: free
time_to_set_up: three minutes a month, plus an hour before each review
version: 1.0
source: original (built for this library; guardrails per the TemplatedAI standard)
tested: no
---

# The Work Year

## What it does
Chains six skills into the loop that actually moves a career: record what you do, review it honestly, find out how you're really seen, ask for what that earns, protect your workload while you do it — and, when the answer stays no, leave properly. The whole cycle runs on evidence you gathered before you needed it.

## What you need
- One running note — phone, doc, anywhere — where three lines a month live
- The six skills: Your Own Review, Get Real Feedback, Ask for a Raise, Decline Extra Work, Raise a Problem, Quit Well

## Setup (one time)
1. **Start the note today.** Date, what changed because you were there, any number attached. Three lines. This one habit is the difference between a self-review written from evidence and one written from panic on a Thursday night.
2. **Find out when decisions actually happen** — the budget cycle, the promotion round. Asking two weeks after the money is allocated is the most common reason a good case fails.

## The workflow (per year)
3. **Monthly:** three lines in the note. That's the whole maintenance cost.
4. **Quarterly — Get Real Feedback.** Specific questions, one project at a time. A surprise in a formal review means this step was skipped.
5. **Before the review — Your Own Review.** Build it from the note. Name one real weakness; a review with none reads as unserious.
6. **Ahead of the budget cycle — Ask for a Raise.** Bring real market data you sourced yourself. Whatever the answer, write it down the same day; "not now" only counts once it has a date and a condition.
7. **All year — Decline Extra Work** when the plate is full, and **Raise a Problem** when you can see something coming. Both are how you stay effective enough to have a case at all.
8. **If nothing moves after a full cycle of this — Quit Well.** Not in anger, and not without the handover that becomes your reference.

## Maintenance habits
- Put every outcome in writing the same day. Memory of who promised what belongs to whoever benefits from misremembering
- Never bring a pay number you can't source; one challenged figure discredits the whole case
- Don't save up problems for review season — a year-old concern raised late lands as a grudge
- Leave on good terms even when they don't deserve it. The industry is smaller than it looks and references outlive grievances

## What we stripped
This pack is original, but the career-advice genre it sits beside is built on things we refuse to publish. No salary figures or "market rates" from an AI — pay is local and current, our training data is neither, and a confident wrong number loses you the room; every relevant skill sends you to real sources instead. No invented achievements or metrics to strengthen a case. No scripts for manipulating a manager, no fake competing offers, no leverage plays. No statements about employment law, notice, or your rights — those vary by country and contract, so we tell you what to check and who to ask. And no promises: a well-built case can still get a no, because budgets and decisions aren't yours to control. What the loop guarantees is that you'll know where you stand and have the evidence to act on it.