examples
Daily standup update examples
A good written standup is four lines: what you finished, what you are doing next, and what is in your way. Below are 12 examples in that shape, taken from the kinds of days people actually have.
Copy one and change the nouns, or paste your own notes into the box and get yours. Both are faster than staring at the empty box.
Or write yours from the scraps you already have.
5 free a month. No signup to try the first one.
scraps
Half sentences are fine.
Sat 31 Oct
Nothing to report.
Nothing planned yet.
Nothing blocking.
Paste anything on the left. Half sentences are fine.
5 of 5 free updates left in October. the Pass
Statusly rewrites what you actually did. It does not invent work, and it never will.
12 examples, by the kind of day you had
Each one is a whole update. Digits, no adjectives, and the blocker names a person or a thing, never a mood.
*Done* • Shipped webhook retries with 3-try backoff. • Reviewed Sam's PR on the migration. *Next* • Write the retry tests. • Look at the flaky migration job. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Still on the billing refactor, day 3. Split the invoice writer out of the charge path. • Wrote 4 tests around the split, all green. *Next* • Move the proration logic across, then delete the old path. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking. Expect this to take another day.
*Done* • Roadmap review, security review, 2 interviews. No code. • Wrote up the decision from the security review in the doc. *Next* • Back on the retry queue, uninterrupted morning. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Opened the PR for the invite emails, ready for review. • Cleared 3 small bugs from the board while waiting. *Next* • Merge the invites once reviewed. *Blocked* • Waiting on Priya for the staging key, 3 days. Cannot test the send path without it.
*Done* • Found and fixed the 500s on /search. Bad index on the tenant column. • Wrote the regression test and a short note in the incident doc. *Next* • Add an alert on search latency so we hear it before users do. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Picked up the export feature. Read the old ticket, ran the current flow end to end. • Listed the 3 places the CSV writer is duplicated. *Next* • Write the plan in the ticket, then start on the shared writer. *Blocked* • Need someone who knows why the finance export is separate. Asking in #data.
*Done* • Second pass on the empty states, 4 screens, in Figma. • Sat with 2 support tickets about the onboarding step and rewrote that copy. *Next* • Hand the empty states to Ravi with the spacing notes. *Blocked* • Waiting on the final logo files from the brand agency.
*Done* • Wrote the spec for invite links, shared it with eng and support. • Talked to 3 customers about the export request. All 3 want it scheduled, not one-off. *Next* • Cut the export scope to scheduled-only and re-estimate with Mika. *Blocked* • Waiting on legal for the data retention answer before I can finalise the spec.
*Done* • Ran the release candidate through the checkout suite. 2 failures, both filed. • Reproduced the mobile Safari upload bug, added the exact steps. *Next* • Regression pass on billing once the 2 fixes land. *Blocked* • Release is blocked on BUG-412 until it is triaged.
*Done* • Half day. Reviewed 2 PRs and merged the copy fix. *Next* • Full day tomorrow, back on the retry queue. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Back today. Read the week's threads and cleared 60 notifications. • Rebased my branch onto main, 2 conflicts, resolved. *Next* • Pick the retry queue back up where I left it. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Chased the flaky test all day and did not catch it. Ruled out timing and the fixture. • Wrote down what I ruled out, in the ticket. *Next* • One more hour on it, then I ask for a second pair of eyes. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking yet. Will flag it tomorrow if it is still open.
The template underneath all of them
Three fields, in this order. If a field is empty, say so in words rather than deleting it.
- Done is finished work, not attended meetings. If the day was meetings, say that plainly.
- Next is one or two items, not your quarter. Anything longer reads as a wish list.
- Blocked names a person or a system and a duration. A blocker with no name cannot be cleared by anyone.
*Done* • <what finished, with a number if there is one> • <what you reviewed, unblocked or answered> *Next* • <the one thing you will do first tomorrow> *Blocked* • <who or what you are waiting on, and how long>
What separates a useful update from noise
Four habits, none of which take longer than the update you were already writing.
Use digits
"3 tests still failing" tells your team where you are. "Made progress on tests" tells them nothing.
Name the person
"Waiting on Priya for the staging key" gets unblocked in a channel. "Blocked on dependencies" does not.
Repeat yesterday on purpose
If you are on day 3 of the same task, say day 3. Silence reads worse than slow.
Do not pad it
A two-line update on a two-line day is honest. Inflating it is the one thing that costs you trust.
A template still leaves you an empty box tomorrow.
This page helps once. What makes the morning stop hurting is that Statusly keeps yesterday, so what you said you would do next is already sitting in today’s Done, waiting for you to confirm it or correct it.
The blocker you never cleared is still flagged, because you never said it cleared. Correcting an update takes 30 seconds. Writing one from nothing is what you have been avoiding.
carry-over
You said you’d write the retry tests. Done?
Still blocked on Priya, 3 days.
The scraps box is empty, and optional.
How long should a daily standup update be?
Four to six bullets. If it is longer than the time it takes to read at standup, it is a status report, not a standup.
What do I write if yesterday and today are the same?
Say it is the same task and add the day count and the last concrete thing you did. Continuity is information.
Should I write it the night before or the morning of?
The night before, if you can. The details are still in your head. In the morning they are gone, which is the whole problem.