Weekly Report
Written for your manager — results and risks first
Write a weekly report from the scattered notes below. Structure: 1) results produced this week (verifiable facts, not words like 'made progress'); 2) problems hit and how I handled them; 3) next week's plan (3 items max, with priorities); 4) what I need you to decide or coordinate. Keep the whole thing under 300 words. [Paste notes]
How to use
Replace every 'pushed forward' with a number, a link, or a shipped artifact — otherwise the report says nothing.
Good for
- It is Friday afternoon and the weekly report is due; it gets walked through at Monday's Weekly, and all you have is scattered commits, Slack threads, and ticked-off todos.
- Three things are moving and none are finished, so the honest report is about where it is stuck and who you need, not a list of the week's activity.
Not for
- The same document will feed OKR scoring or a performance self-review — a weekly report is a process update; wording it for scoring turns it into self-praise and can contradict your OKR rating.
- The week was mostly waiting on external dependencies with no output — padding for results produces watery sentences; use a blocked + needs-escalation format instead.
Example
Input
Mon: fixed payment callback retries, ran 3 rounds of load tests. Wed: invoice review with the vendor, still waiting on their stamp. Thu: customer A says the export is slow, traced to N+1, fix written but not shipped. Fri: reviewed Xiao Zhou's proposal, left 4 comments.
What you get
Results only where they are verifiable: the retry fix is live and passed 3 load tests; the slow export is traced to N+1 with the fix written but not released, so label it not shipped rather than solved. Then the blockers (vendor stamp missing, second email sent) and next week's three priorities in order, ending with one line asking your manager to decide whether this week's release includes the export fix.
Common mistakes
- Pasting a week of daily logs for polishing — you get a smoother diary, and your manager still cannot see results or risk.
- Using 'pushed forward', 'following up', or 'continuously optimizing' as results — none are verifiable, and enough of them make the real wins look suspect too.
Try tweaking it like this
- Add 'My manager cares most about launch dates and headcount cost this quarter — lead with anything related', so the order follows their concerns, not your work order.
- Add 'Anything without verifiable evidence gets marked in progress with a next step and a date', to stop 'worked on' from becoming 'delivered'.