EA Wins log

The EA Wins Log: The Simplest Habit That Will Change Your Career

June 01, 20264 min read

Tracking your wins weekly takes 5 minutes and builds the foundation for every raise and promotion conversation you’ll ever have.

You just pulled off something extraordinary. You reorganized a chaotic board retreat, saved a deal with a midnight travel pivot, or quietly untangled a crisis before your executive even knew it existed. Then Monday came, and you moved on.

Six months later, your performance review arrives. Your manager asks what you’ve accomplished this year. And you stare at the ceiling, because you’ve done a thousand things — but you can remember exactly none of them.

THE RESEARCH

70% of EAs report feeling undervalued and overlooked by peers and leadership — not because their work is poor, but because the nature of the EA role makes contributions structurally invisible.

The problem isn’t your performance. It’s that your impact was never documented. That’s what an executive assistant wins log fixes — and it takes five minutes a week to maintain.

What Is an Executive Assistant Wins Log?

An executive assistant wins log is a simple running document where you record your achievements, contributions, and measurable impact on a weekly basis. Think of it as your personal impact record — a structured habit that transforms invisible work into visible, quantifiable evidence.

It is not a task list. It is not a job description. It’s proof — organized, dated, and ready to deploy whenever you need it most.

EA WINS LOG — SAMPLE ENTRIES

executive assistant wins log

Why Most EAs Don’t Do This (And Pay the Price)

EA work is structurally invisible. You succeed when nothing goes wrong. The better you are, the less anyone notices — because problems disappear before they surface. This isn’t a character flaw. It’s an organizational dynamic.

Key statistics:

•70% of EAs feel undervalued despite strong performance

•A wins log requires just 5 minutes per week to maintain

•Weekly logging gives you 52x more evidence than relying on memory alone at review time

When raises, promotions, and recognition come up, they go to the people whose value is legible — not necessarily those who worked hardest. Your wins log makes your value legible, on your terms, without awkward self-promotion.

“When good work is invisible, so are raises, promotions, and respect.”

How to Build Your EA Wins Log: A Weekly Habit

This is not a complex system. That’s by design. Here’s exactly how to build yours:

  1. Pick your format. A simple spreadsheet with four columns works perfectly: Date, Win/Contribution, Measurable Impact, and Category (Time Saved / Money Saved / Risk Avoided / Exec Effectiveness / Relationship Capital).

  2. Set a Friday reminder. Block 5 minutes every Friday. Ask yourself: what did I do this week that made a difference? Write it down — even if it feels small.

  3. Quantify where you can. “Coordinated travel” becomes “Rerouted three-leg itinerary in 40 minutes, enabling exec to attend critical client meeting.” Numbers matter. Language matters.

  4. Include soft wins. Defused a tense situation. Caught an error before it reached a client. Kept a confidence. These are legitimate wins — log them.

  5. Review quarterly. Every 90 days, look back at your log and write a 3–5 bullet Quarterly Impact Brief. This becomes your review prep — already done.

THE WINS LOG IN PRACTICE

Your executive assistant wins log feeds directly into every high-stakes career conversation: annual reviews, promotion discussions, salary negotiations, and new role pitches. When the moment comes, you won’t be scrambling to remember. You’ll have receipts.

From Tracking Wins to Building Strategic Visibility

The wins log is your foundatio, but it’s the first step in a larger shift: moving from being seen as support staff to being recognized as a strategic operator inside your organization.

Tracking wins gives you the raw material. The next layer is learning how to communicate those wins upward, in language your executive and their peers actually respond to. That means framing your impact in terms of organizational outcomes, not activities. Not “managed the calendar,” but “protected 6 hours of deep focus time per week that enabled the product roadmap review.”

This is exactly what Module 1 of our EA Mastery Course teaches — from understanding why EA work is structurally invisible, to building your personal impact record, to mastering the Quarterly Impact Brief framework for communicating your value without self-promotion feeling politically risky.

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FREE DOWNLOAD

Start Your Wins Log This Week

The free template includes the exact column structure, category tags, and quarterly review prompts used in the course. Five minutes on Friday. Compound results by year-end.

Download the free Wins Log template

Sherry Tholenaer

Sherry Tholenaer

Sherry Tholenaer is a native Calgarian and a seasoned executive assistant and Chief of Staff with 25 years of experience. She has worked as a fractional EA, recruited top-tier administrative talent, and coached EAs to excel in their roles. Sherry also consults executives on optimizing their administrative infrastructure, ensuring seamless operations and strategic support. Her program is built from her lived experience; not theory, not surveys, but 25 years of doing this work at the highest level.

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