Try it free
Product
Everything you can hand overSee every feature →
Set it up by talkingJust talkTell it what happened. It does the work.Set up by talkingIt arranges itself from a conversation.Your kind of workIt takes the shape of your work.Your wordsYour words, not ours.Your processPipelines and stages you design.Your questionsThe same questions, asked the same way.
Messages and answersInboxEvery message that reaches you, answered.Hand-offWhat it can't answer comes to you, with the reason.KnowledgeIt knows how you work.Web researchIt gathers from the web.
Promises and follow-upAfter the callSay it once, after the call.PromisesEvery promise, on its date.Going quietIt notices what's going quiet.AutomationsRoutines that run themselves.
Records and numbersRecordsEveryone's whole story, in one look.ImportBring what you already have.Products & quotesWhat you sell, and what you quoted.DashboardsYour numbers, from day one.AskAsk your work anything.
ControlTeamYour team, each with their part.ApprovalsJudgement waits for you.Reasons & sourcesNothing made up. Everything with its reason.
What’s new →
Use cases
What Felesh looks like for youAll use cases →
For you aloneYour own daysA business ownerA creatorSomeone who decides
TeamsA recruiterA project managerA product managerA support deskA B2B sales team
BusinessesA local grocery shopA training instituteAn online shopA small businessA wholesalerA recruitment agencyAn accounting firmA law officeA local clinicA dental clinic
Large organisationsAn enterpriseA hospitalA holding group office
PricingTrust
Resources
BlogGuidesChangelogAcademyAbout
Log in

How do I know the work I handed to someone is moving, without asking?

Handed work keeps its owner and date on one list. A routine you describe in a sentence can draft a nudge for overdue tasks and waits for your yes.

5 min read · · The Felesh team

Why you end up asking

You say in the corridor that the draft needs to go to a client by Thursday. Your colleague nods and the conversation moves on. The date is settled in your head, but it is not written anywhere you can both see.

A week later, you still have not heard. You send a short message: “Any update on the draft?” The reply comes quickly: “It is in hand.” You are glad, but the exchange leaves a small sour taste.

The same thing happens with the invoice and the spec. Each time you hand over work in a chat or by the kettle, the details stay in the words you used. After a few days you cannot tell whether the work is moving, blocked or forgotten.

Asking for an update is reasonable. You handed over real work. Yet the question looks like checking up, and the other person has to stop and account for themselves. Neither of you did anything wrong. The task was handed over without a date, an owner or a shared list.

Fig. 1 Each handed task keeps its owner and its date on one list, soonest first.

What handed work needs to carry

Take one task you hand over this week. It needs three things: what the work is, who is holding it, and when it is due. If one of those is missing, you will chase.

The date goes missing most often. We say “sometime next week” and call that a date. The other person hears “when I get to it”. You mean Thursday. The gap shows up when the deadline passes.

A shared place matters too, and a long chat thread is not one. Important details sit between a joke and a question about lunch, and the person holding the work has to scroll to find them as well.

Write the task down where both of you can see it: a sentence with a verb, a person and a day. “Sarah sends the draft to the client by Thursday” is enough.

Hand it over with a date and an owner

In Felesh, you tell it the promise and its day in your own words. “Sarah sends the draft to the client by Thursday” is enough. The task is added straight away, with that date on it.

Every task says what it is, who it is about and when it is due. Give it an owner and it carries their name too. Assign it to Sarah and she gets a notice when it comes due, so the reminder comes from the task, not from you.

You do not have to hold the date in your head after the conversation ends. It is on the task, not buried in a thread. In the corridor you would say all of this in one breath. The task keeps the same words.

See what is moving on one list

All tasks sit on one list, soonest first. You can switch to Mine or Overdue, or move the same tasks across the lanes of a board. The tasks are the same; only the view changes.

A Friday afternoon check starts at the top of the list. The next handover to come due is right there, and you can see what comes next without sending a message.

When a task is completed, a line is added to the history of the person it is about. A completed task cannot be reopened.

When a date passes

When a task you have assigned comes due, the person it is assigned to gets a notice in the panel, and overdue tasks stand out on the list. There is no text or email, and a task with no owner has no one to receive that notice.

To catch tasks that have gone quiet, you can describe a routine in one sentence. For example: “every Monday, find the tasks that are overdue and draft a nudge”. Felesh builds the steps and saves them as a draft that is off. Publishing it and turning it on each wait for your yes, and any nudge it drafts waits for your yes too.

A routine can start on a schedule, such as Monday at nine, or when a task is created or completed. You can test it on one real record first. The test run shows what it would do and writes nothing.

The point of the routine is that the question “what is late?” gets answered by a list you read, not by a message you send. Routines start off, so nothing runs until you turn it on.

What this does not do

A task list shows work, not effort. It cannot tell you whether someone struggled or took the long way round. You still have to talk to your colleagues.

A date helps only if it was said when the work was handed over. If you say “let me know when it is done” and write nothing down, no list can fix that.

A task that has gone quiet tells you about the work, not about the person.

Start with this week’s handovers

Pick one task you are about to hand over and give it a day before you leave the room. The promises page shows how it works.

Next question How can I step away from the business and still know what's going on? You cannot hand over the answering-for-it, but you can keep the work known. Here is how to set up before you leave, and what the morning back looks like.