How to Create an Effective Project Status Report from weekly status report template , image source: www.smartsheet.com
Each week brings new projects, emails, files, and task lists. How much of that is different from the job you have done before? Odds are, not much. Many of our day-to-day tasks are variations on something.
Don’t reinvent the wheel each single time you start something fresh. Use templates–as starting point for work standardized documents with formatting and text. Once you save another variant of the template, just add, remove, or alter any info for that exceptional document, and you are going to have the new work.
Programs work everywhere: in word processors, spreadsheets, project management programs, survey programs, and email. Here’s the way to use templates and to create documents from a template–so it’s possible to get your common tasks done quicker.
Templates take time to build, and it’s easy to wonder whether they are worth the investment. The short answer: absolutely. Editing a template requires much less time than formatting some thing from scratch. It’s the difference between retyping it, or copying and pasting some text.
That is not the only benefit: Using a template means you are not as inclined to leave out key info, too. For example, if you need to send freelance writers a contributor arrangement, modifying a standard contract template (instead of writing a new contract each time) ensures you won’t depart out that crucial clause regarding owning the material as soon as you’ve paid for this.
Templates also guarantee consistency. Maybe you send customers or investors regular project updates. With a template, you understand the update will constantly have the same formatting, layout, and structure.
How to Create Fantastic Templates
Not all templates are created equal–and a few things do not need a template. Here are a few guidelines to follow.
First, templates must be comprehensive. So err on the side of adding rather than too little, it is simpler to delete info than add it in.
Imagine you are creating a template of your resume. You would want to record in-depth details about your responsibilities and accomplishments, so you are going to have all the info you need to submit an application for almost any job.
You can delete notes that are less-important on, but you might forget it at the final 25, when it is not in the template.
Some tools will automatically fill in these variables for you (more on this in a little ). But if you have to fill in the data by yourself, add some text that’s easy and obvious to look for so you can locate text that has to be changed without much effort.
Gallery of Weekly Status Report Template
