We are so busy with completing tasks, but are we taking the time to take a step back? To look at the bigger picture?
Status updates can help you accomplish just that. Writing them forces you to take a step back, and reading them provides stakeholders with the gist of what’s going on.
But we often feel we don’t have time for it, and we find ourselves postponing that status update to next week, and then the week after that…
Here I will walk you through the essentials of the minimalistic status update. The one you can do in five minutes.
Who gets the update?
Before you start writing your status update it might be good to check who will be getting it. Does everyone who needs to get a notification get it?
You can check this under Project sharing settings > Manage notifications
What is the status?
The only technical requirement for posting a status update in asana is that you select a status.
Be honest when you pick one of these. They will show up at the portfolio level so you (or your manager) can easily see which project needs attention
What’s in the name?
When you create a status update, Asana will automatically generate a name calling it “Status update” and adding the date:
It took me longer than I dare to admit until I found out you could just change it by starting typing.
So we’re at two clicks: [Set status] > [Select status]
This is the place where you’ll want to use as few words as possible to provide the essence of the status update.
What is the one thing you want people to know about the status of this project?
The reason for wanting to do so will become apparent when you look at the project from the overview tab:
These last two status updates are exactly the same, but for the fact that the top one has the text “Venue booked!” in the body of the status update, and the bottom one in the title.
Two other arguments to always change the title:
- “Status update” is redundant, as you can see it is by the fact it has a coloured dot in front of it reflecting the status
- You get an indication of when the status update was created anyway.
And finally - if you’re still not convinced - let’s go to the portfolio and change the following:
Customise > Edit > Fields > Status Preview > Show
Now drag the column Status preview next to the Status update column and make it a bit wider.
PS: Don’t forget to save the portfolio layout as default.
The rest is bonus
Sure you can make a status update real fancy. But I think anything else you add to a status update is bonus.
Just start with this as a minimum:
- One sentence.
- Every week
- max. 5 minutes
Will you try it out and let me know how this works for you?
PS: I couldn’t help myself and took it to the next level. 
