What I got wrong about how quickly evidence 'counts' after it happens

Assumed for a while that a recent achievement (something that happened weeks before I planned to file) would need extensive time to be "established" as real evidence before I could use it. That assumption cost me some unnecessary anxiety, and I want to clarify it for anyone else carrying the same assumption. What actually matters is whether the achievement is genuinely documented — not how much time has passed since it happened. A recent award with a proper certificate and independent verification of the award's standing is just as usable as one from three years ago; the documentation quality matters, not the achievement's age by itself (recency actually helps the "sustained" part of sustained acclaim, if anything). Where recency actually does matter: making sure you have time to gather proper documentation before filing. If something happened very close to your filing date and you don't yet have solid documentation for it, that's a real practical constraint — but it's a documentation-timing issue, not some inherent "evidence needs to age" rule that doesn't actually exist.