I sometimes self-approve small changes too. But I really do think it's a bad habit and unnecessary. I don't like hassling people with tiny trivial code reviews,

I sometimes self-approve small changes too. But I really do think it's a bad habit and unnecessary. I don't like hassling people with tiny trivial code reviews, but I don't mind at all when people ask me for the same, so I don't think it is actually a hassle. Catching bugs is only one of the reasons for doing code reviews (and not even a great reason at that -- plenty of bugs make it through code review after all). Another important reason is sharing knowledge within the team, and that applies to tiny changes as much as large ones. I don't think mandatory code reviews regardless of size are really "rigid" or "unacceptable" at all, not in a good team where code reviews are a well-established part of the culture. In jobs where I didn't have admin privileges and wasn't able to bypass code review even for trivial changes, we reviewed absolutely everything and got on just fine. Sure, sometimes the reviewer barely looks at the change and just rubber-stamps it. But that's a sign of trust, which is a good thing, and still gives you that little bit of team cohesion and knowledge sharing -- at least one other person is roughly aware of what you're doing.