So here we are again, folks. The end of another year, and the beginning of those damnable year-end retrospectives. Best entertainers of 2010. Top songs of 2010.  Best new words of 2010 (refudiate anyone?).  And, while I lament this annual cultural exercise, I reluctantly admit that there's value in it. These lists are a snapshot in time. They tell us who we were as a people, what we valued and what we produced in this particular slice of zeitgeist.

Your Greatest Hits of 2010So, dear reader, what were your greatest hits of 2010? What were your greatest accomplishments at work? Did you meet all of your goals? Did you exceed them?

Here's what I'd like you to do. Sit down and create a few categories for yourself. Feel free to have some fun with it. You might come up with something like this:

Greatest Accomplishments

·        Replaced that dodgy backup server and implemented a solid offsite tape rotation plan

·        Negotiated a killer price of the new GB switches, and upgraded the entire network

Best Crisis Moments

·        Got the CRM back up within an hour after the motherboard mysteriously toasted

·        Used a data recovery tool to get back 90 percent of the CEO's data when his hard drive dumped AND HE HAD NOT BEEN STORING THE DATA IN A LOCATION THAT WAS BEING BACKED UP. Seriously, does anyone listen to me?

Going through this exercise can be fun, and most of all, enlightening. It works for an individual or a team. In fact, it can be a good team-building exercise. This info also comes in handy during your annual review. You'll have this stuff at your fingertips, and can sing your praises readily.  For job seekers, having a category like Best Crisis Moments gets you ready for those questions that start out, "Tell me about a time in your career when you¿"

Once you're done with the year-end retrospective, do the next culturally sappy thing. Make resolutions to keep track of the items on your list next year. Do it on a monthly or even weekly basis, so that you can compile your year-end list a little easier next time.  (See previous paragraph for the ROI.) And, keep your lists from year to year so that you can do the granddaddy of look-back lists, the decade in review.

For you programmers out there, put a little recursion in the process, and add the making of your "best of" list as one of the items - on the list.

Chad Broadus is a tech professional living in the Pacific Northwest