I've always done #1. You give them your initial counseling, filling in the "counseling" date. Then with the bullets on the back side, you add as the months go by. Say he was a Range Safety officer over X amount with X scoring Expert and zero accidents, also had 2 Soldiers go and win the SOM board, and this NCO scored over 90 in each event.
I would annotate that on the -1 in pencil. Then when I counsel him/her quarterly, I would go back and talk about all the good/bad things they have done, then look at other goals we need to strive for in getting a well rounded NCOER.
I don't think doing #2 is even reasonable. First thing I think of is the NCOs time on top of daily duties to continue trying to complete an almost full NCOER every 3 months when the rated NCO may have not completed anything, or there was no opportunity within the unit. So 2 problems I see with #2, Rating NCO not having the time needed to complete an almost full NCOER every 3 months and 2, the chance that the rated NCO did not have the opportunities to complete goals or the unit may have been on Leave and reset where there was very little ways to complete those goals.
Again, these are only things I see and how I conduct business. Every NCO has his/her own way. Hope this helped.
When was the last time YOU recited and lived by the NCO Creed?