Done, Doing, Blocked

Strip away the formatting and every status report in every industry reduces to three questions:

• Done — what was completed since the last report. Completed, not worked on.
• Doing — what’s in progress now and due before the next one.
• Blocked — what’s stopping you, and who can unblock it.

You’ll see the same skeleton under other names — Progress, Plans, Problems; Accomplishments, Planned, Issues; Achieved, Next, Risks — but the content is identical. If your template has other sections, they’re additions to this core rather than replacements for it.

The third one is the point. A reader can find out what you’ve been doing from the work itself; what they can’t see is what you’re stuck on. Status reports exist so that blockers reach someone with the authority to clear them while it still matters — and a report with the blockers section left blank week after week is usually a report where somebody has decided not to raise things.

Weekly Status Report Example

Two features make this report worth the ten minutes it took. The blocked section names a decision, an option set, a date, and a person — so the reader knows exactly what’s being asked of them. And the numbers are comparative: 19 hours against 31 last week, backlog down 36. A figure on its own is data; a figure against last week’s is information.

Free Status Report Templates in MS Word and Excel

Each template below is editable. Pick the cadence that matches how fast your work actually changes, then use the same file every period.

Weekly Status Report Template

Stoplight Project Status Report Template

Daily Progress Status Report Template

Blank Status Report Template

Project Status Report Template Volume 02

Weekly Status Report Template Volume 02

MS-Excel Project Status Report Template

Total Project Status Report Template

Choosing the Cadence

Match the reporting frequency to how fast the situation actually changes, not to how important the work feels:

• Daily — for work that moves within a day: incident response, a launch week, a delivery sprint. Keep it to three lines; a daily report that takes fifteen minutes to write won’t survive the month.
• Weekly — the default for most teams and client relationships. Long enough that something has changed, short enough that problems surface while they’re small.
• Fortnightly or monthly — for slower programmes, steering groups, and senior stakeholders who don’t need the detail. Usually a rollup of the weekly reports rather than a separate exercise.

Reporting more often than the work moves produces reports with nothing in them, and readers stop opening them. Reporting less often means problems arrive already expensive. If you’re unsure, weekly is right far more often than not.

Who’s Reading It

The same three sections, weighted differently depending on the audience:

• Your manager wants the blockers and the asks. They can see the work; they can’t see what you need from them. Put that near the top.
• A client wants progress and reassurance, in their language rather than your internal shorthand. Lead with what’s been delivered, be plain about anything slipping, and never let them learn about a delay from a deadline passing.
• Your team wants coordination — who’s doing what, what’s landing when, what they’re waiting on from each other.
• A steering group or sponsor wants an overall rating and the decisions required, not the detail. For that audience, milestone-level reporting works better — see our project progress report templates.

Why Status Reports Stop Being Read

Almost always for the same reason: they turn into activity logs. A list of everything touched this week, in no particular order, with nothing signalling what matters. Readers skim one, learn there’s nothing in it for them, and stop opening the next.

Four habits prevent it:

• Lead with what changed, not with what happened. “Response time down to 19 hours” is a change; “continued working on response times” is not.
• Report completions, not effort. “Drafted” is not “delivered,” and a reader who discovers the difference later trusts the next report less.
• Put the ask where it will be seen. If you need a decision, it goes near the top with a name and a date against it — not in the last line of the third section.
• Keep the format identical every time. Readers learn where to look, and comparing this week to last becomes trivial. A redesigned report is a report that has to be read from scratch.

And send it on the same day every period. A report that arrives promptly when things are going well and slips when they aren’t teaches its readers to worry about silence — which is a worse outcome than a bad report.

Word, Excel, or Slides?

The content doesn’t change with the format; the circumstances do.

Word suits a report that gets emailed and read — narrative sections, blockers explained in a sentence or two. It’s the right default for most weekly updates.

Excel suits reporting that’s mostly numbers: metrics tracked week over week, multiple workstreams in a grid, or anything where you want the trend calculated rather than typed.

Slides suit a status report that will be presented — a steering group, a client meeting, a monthly review. One workstream per slide with a RAG indicator, and the detail in the speaker notes rather than on the page. If you’re building one, the same Done / Doing / Blocked structure works; you’re just changing the container.

The common mistake is presenting a document or emailing a deck. A Word report read aloud in a meeting loses the room, and a deck sent by email without narration leaves the reader guessing what the bullet points meant.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a status report?

A recurring update describing where a project, team, or piece of work currently stands — what’s been completed, what’s in progress, and what’s blocked. It’s usually sent on a fixed cadence to a manager, client, or stakeholder group.

What should a status report include?

The period covered and who it’s from, an overall status indicator, what was completed, what’s in progress, what’s blocked with the decision or help needed, key numbers compared to the previous period, and what’s planned next.

What is the difference between a status report and a progress report?

The terms overlap and many organizations use them interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn, a status report is the recurring snapshot of where things stand now, while a progress report emphasizes movement against a plan — milestones achieved, forecast dates, and decisions needed from a sponsor.

How often should status reports be sent?

Weekly suits most teams and client relationships. Daily is for fast-moving work like incidents or launch weeks, and monthly for slower programmes and senior stakeholders. Match the frequency to how quickly the situation actually changes.

What is a stoplight status report?

One using red, amber, and green indicators against each workstream so a reader can triage the report at a glance — green means on track, amber means at risk with a mitigation, red means off track and needing a decision. Always name the mitigation when you go amber; amber with no plan is really red.

How long should a status report be?

One page. If it runs longer, the detail belongs in an appendix or a linked document — a status report that takes ten minutes to read gets skimmed, and skimming defeats the purpose of writing it.

How do I write a status report for my manager?

Three short sections: what you finished, what you’re working on, and what’s blocking you or what you need from them. The third section is the one they can act on, so don’t bury it at the bottom.

Pete Smith

Pete Smith is a Business Management graduate and a passionate advocate for practical, accessible resources that empower professionals and entrepreneurs to succeed. With a strong foundation in organizational strategy and operational efficiency, Pete combines academic knowledge with real-world insights to simplify complex business processes. He is the creator behind a growing online platform dedicated to offering free, high-quality documents, templates, and actionable tips designed to save time and improve productivity.

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