It’s performance review season, and you’re staring at a blank document trying to evaluate your team.
You know a massive, project-saving win happened about several months ago. But for the life of you, you can’t remember the specifics. Meanwhile, a minor miscommunication from last Tuesday and a stressful sprint from last month are vividly playing on a loop in your head.
This is recency bias: the cognitive glitch where we give disproportionate weight to recent events over historical data.
The weird thing? Most of us know this is happening. But avoiding it is harder than it sounds. The standard advice is to “just keep better notes.” But realistically, when your day is a chaotic blur of meetings and execution, taking meticulous notes falls to the bottom of the priority list.
I know, because I used to fall into this trap all the time.
How I Learned the Hard Way: From Manila Folders to 1:1 Software
At an earlier company, I held regular 1:1s with my team, but they were highly informal. We actually had a formal QA program in place to track performance metrics, but when review time came around, it was still incredibly easy to forget who did what, and exactly when. The recency bias was strong, and my reviews felt unfairly skewed toward the last few weeks.
I realized I needed a system, so I ended up doing things the old-fashioned way. I set up physical manila file folders for everyone on my team. Every time something happened—a big win, a missed target, positive feedback, a mistake—I’d print it out and drop it in their folder. It was clunky, but it worked. When review time came, I had a physical stack of paper that forced me to look at the whole year, not just the last 30 days.
Later, at a different company, I wanted to modernize this without losing the rigor. We used dedicated 1:1 software. During every meeting, I’d log my notes directly into the tool. Crucially, I’d ask the engineer I was meeting with to read and validate what I entered right then and there, ensuring we were completely aligned on what was discussed. The software also had a running “parking lot” for items we wanted to discuss later, so nothing slipped through the cracks.
When performance review season arrived, I didn’t have to rack my brain. I just opened the 1:1 notes, and the entire year’s performance was laid out in front of me.
4 Strategies to Prevent Recency Bias
If you don’t want to resort to physical file folders, here are four modern strategies to ensure your reviews reflect the whole year:
1. Build a “Low-Friction” Running Log If your tracking system requires more than two minutes of effort, you won’t use it. The goal isn’t to write a novel; it’s to capture breadcrumbs. Create a private Slack/Teams channel with just yourself, or use a shared “Brag Document” (Notion, Word, Confluence). Drop in links to positive feedback, completed projects, and metrics immediately after they happen.
2. Shift from “Annual Reviews” to “Continuous Check-ins” The biggest cause of recency bias is treating the performance review as an annual event. If you are a manager, your weekly or bi-weekly 1:1s are the performance review. Use a shared document or 1:1 software where both you and the employee can add agenda items. When review time comes, the annual review shouldn’t be a surprise; it should just be a formal summary of the conversations you’ve already had.
3. Validate Notes in Real-Time Taking notes is only half the battle; ensuring you and your direct report agree on those notes is the other. During your 1:1s, take a moment to review what you’ve written with them. This prevents “he said/she said” surprises at review time and ensures both of you are aligned on expectations and progress throughout the year.
4. Structure the Self-Review to Force Historical Reflection If you rely on employee self-reviews, don’t just give them a blank box that says, “What are your achievements?” Structure the self-review to force a look at the whole year:
- What is a project you are most proud of from the first half of the year?
- What is a skill you’ve developed since your last review? By asking specific, time-boxed questions, you force the brain to retrieve older memories.
The Takeaway
Recency bias is human nature, but unfair performance reviews are a leadership failure. Whether you use physical folders, 1:1 software, or a simple shared doc, the key is to capture the data continuously. By lowering the friction of tracking achievements and shifting to continuous feedback, we can ensure that a big win in March counts just as much as a fire put out in November.
Over to you: How do you combat recency bias during review season? Do you have a specific tool, habit, or process that saves you? Let me know in the comments below.