Getting Credit for Extracurriculars: Capturing the Work That Falls Outside the Office
How to track, package, and communicate the extracurricular and volunteer work that builds your skills but often goes unnoticed.
Nobody hands you credit for the work they never saw.
Once you start keeping track of everything you do, you realize just how much happens outside the formal boundaries of your job description or syllabus. But keeping track of it is only half the battle—you also have to know how to capture credit for it.
Start Small: Document Everything
Whether that’s time logging in Toggl or a quick sticky note on your desk, you need a lightweight record of what you’re spending your time on. As a rule of thumb, if you’re spending more than 4 hours on a side project, volunteer initiative, or internal working group, it’s worth noting.
Keeping a record of your time is also one of the best ways to communicate and help your manager (or yourself) reprioritize when you feel like too much is being put on your plate. And when it’s accomplishments you need to log rather than hours, keep a brag book—that side of the ledger is covered in Getting Credit for ‘Not My Job’.
I’ve been told a few times about how “interesting” my life sounds. And honestly? It’s less about how interesting my life is, and more about how I document all of the quirky things I run into, and turn them into stories to share.
Make It Visible: Pick Your Medium
Bragging doesn’t come naturally to most of us. But if you don’t communicate the value of what you’re doing, no one else will.
Find low-friction ways to make your extracurricular work visible:
- Take a photo at a networking or community event to share on LinkedIn or internal Slack.
- Package up the materials, templates, or guides you made for a non-profit and drop them in a shared folder so others can use them.
- Turn your lessons learned into a short internal presentation or blog post.
Extracurriculars earn credit the same way anything else does—by being seen. When you package your extracurriculars into tangible assets, they stop feeling like “hobbies” and start looking like proven leadership and execution.