{"id":6707,"date":"2026-05-26T08:26:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/?p=6707"},"modified":"2026-05-27T21:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:40:15","slug":"action-trackers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/2026\/05\/action-trackers\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Trackers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Action trackers help to keep track of open items. This is an important tool in project management or even everyday life. It helps to drive the completion of current and future items. This ensures no balls are dropped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the years, I have tried many different types of apps, standalone or those integrated with Outlook, eg To Do etc. I have always come back to the humble spreadsheet as an action tracker. It requires no special skills, everyone knows how to use a spreadsheet. The file can be easily shared with external parties via during a video call or email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All you need are the following columns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Number<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Date logged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Description<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Action By<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Updates<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Target date<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One line for each tasks, do not merge any cells.  Distill it down as minute as possible. When entering updates, use Alt Enter to break into multiple lines   Latest update at the top, oldest at the bottom. Each update should start with a date. eg &#8220;1 May &#8211; The obstruction was cleared and deployment proceeds&#8221; If the action item has many updates, after a few weeks or months, adjust the row height to hide the older updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Status column, some people have multiple statuses eg. Close, in progress, not started, KIV etc.  I prefer just Open and Close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For multi-site or multi track projects eg construction, you might have Site A, B, C etc or electrical, plumbing, HVAC etc. Add a column to aid focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If there is an internal sub-project riding with the customer&#8217;s project, you might consider 2 separate lists (safer), or a single list with a column to filter internal and external tasks (great care is required).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Action trackers help to keep track of open items. This is an important tool in project management or even everyday life. It helps to drive the completion of current and future items. This ensures no balls are dropped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6707"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6717,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6707\/revisions\/6717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alfredivy.sg\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}