We are all moving quickly working to get as much done as we can every day. We push hard to deliver results, hustle from meeting to meeting and pack as much in every day as possible. I sometimes lose sight of whether or not I’m delivering the results I expect. I find value when I take time to reflect on the results I deliver and take stock of my performance.

If you’re wondering whether you are achieving what you expect, it helps to start with the end in mind. Do you know what you’re trying to accomplish? Have you set a priority, or goals you expect to achieve for the month or quarter? Start with the last 30 days to reflect on your performance.

Assuming you didn’t set an explicit set of goals or priorities for the month, you can still gain value from reflection. Set aside 30 minutes to review on your progress. Start by asking yourself, what did your boss expect you to do this month? Ask what you expected to get done. Sometimes I find my expectation is overly optimistic. In that case, I what would be reasonable to expect someone else to have accomplished (we are often more kind to others). Write these down as externally demonstrable goals.

Evaluate how you’ve done against these expectations. There are many ways to grade yourself, you can give yourself a letter grade from A through F. You can assign done, partial or not-started to each goal. In whatever way you grade yourself, you’ll have things you nailed and things you didn’t start and much in-between. Write down how you assess your results.

Interpret the results you delivered over the last thirty days through the eyes of your boss, or someone who is judging your performance. Would they be happy with those results you delivered at an A level? Are there things you got an F on that your boss would be upset by? Are there too many things moving along too slowly? Look at your results as if this reflected the scorecard of someone on your staff. Are you satisfied with the performance?

From this scorecard, you can now take action. You can use what you’ve written as a starting point for what you want to accomplish over the next 30 days. If you have too many things that are partially done, consider reducing the list of goals to allow you to focus. Take note of obvious blockers that have kept you from completing your goals. Find the goals that have suffered because they are not clearly defined, and develop more concrete deliverables. Identify tactics you can try to prevent a repeat performance. Schedule another 30 minutes meeting with yourself to reflect again one month from now.

As a bonus, those goals you performed the best on become a great start to your self review. If they are big accomplishments, add them to your resume. Write down one high impact goal each month so you remember. Send the list to your boss before your annual review and help him or her write your evaluation.