Daily Standup Update Prompt

What this prompt does

The classic standup question set ("what did you do, what are you doing, what's blocking you") sounds simple but consistently produces either under-informative bullet dumps or paragraph-length essays about things nobody needed to hear. This prompt produces standup updates that are the right length, specific about progress, and clear about what needs team action.

Works for async standups (Slack, Loom, written updates) and live standups where you want to prep before the call.

The prompt

Write my daily standup update from these notes:

**Yesterday I worked on:** [WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DID — be specific, not "worked on the project"]
**Today I'm working on:** [WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE TODAY]
**Blockers (if any):** [WHAT'S STOPPING YOU — or "none"]
**Anything the team needs to know:** [CONTEXT THAT AFFECTS OTHERS — or "nothing"]

Format the update as:

✅ **Done:** [2–4 bullets on completed or progressed work — specific, with outcomes if possible]
🔨 **Today:** [2–3 bullets on today's work]
🚫 **Blockers:** [One sentence per blocker, naming what you need from whom — or "None"]
📢 **FYI:** [Optional — anything affecting others, like a deadline shift or dependency update]

Rules:
- No "working on" without naming the specific task or deliverable
- If something is done, name what done looks like (e.g., "PR merged" not "finished coding")
- If there's a blocker, name who can unblock it
- Total length: under 150 words

How to use it

1. Fill in specifics in your notes — the quality of the output is exactly proportional to the specificity of your input. "Worked on the feature" → generic output. "Finished the search filter component, PR in review" → useful output.
2. Name blockers explicitly — "Blocked on design approval (need input from Alex)" is actionable. "Waiting on things" is not.
3. Cut the FYI if there's nothing — the update is better shorter than padded with "nothing to report."
4. Run it first thing in the morning while your day's plan is fresh, or at the end of the previous day to submit first thing.

Example output

✅ Done:

• Landing page A/B test variants deployed to staging — both live
• Reviewed and merged Marcus's PR on email tracking (#142)
• Had sync with design on the new onboarding flow — notes shared in Notion

🔨 Today:

• Final QA pass on landing page before tomorrow's campaign launch
• Draft the campaign brief for paid social (due EOD)

🚫 Blockers: Need final copy approval from Sarah for the homepage banner — holding up QA. Can she review by noon?

📢 FYI: Campaign goes live tomorrow 8am — heads up to anyone running reports that saw an anomaly last launch.

123 words. Specific enough to be useful, short enough to read in 20 seconds.

Variations

For async video standup (Loom)

"Format this as a spoken script for a 90-second Loom update. Conversational tone. Start with the most important thing, not the recap of what I did."

For manager standups (reporting to leadership)

"Format for a manager update: focus on team-level progress, not my individual tasks. Include: what the team moved forward, any risk or decision I need leadership on, team blockers."

For remote-first teams without daily standups

"Write a weekly async update (Monday or Friday) instead. Cover: what the team shipped last week, what we're starting, risks for this week."

Common pitfalls

• Don't: Write your standup as a wall of text. Standups are for the team's awareness, not a detailed log of your day.

• Try instead: Use the bullet structure — it's skimmable in seconds, which is the whole point.

• Don't: Skip the blocker section if you have blockers. Silent blockers are where projects stall.

Who uses this prompt

• Developers and PMs: Daily async standup in Slack or dedicated tools
• Marketers: Campaign team standups and agency check-ins
• Managers: Weekly summaries to leadership
• Remote teams: Any async written update format