Keeping track of overdue tasks and making sure people stay accountable is a key part of managing processes well.
We’re working on automatic escalation features for overdue tasks - think smart automated responses like adding comments and reassigning tasks when deadlines pass. This keeps workflows moving and people accountable.
We’ve got some pretty cool automatic escalation features in the works for managing overdue tasks.
Here’s what’s coming:
In the meantime, there are several ways you can handle overdue tasks right now.
Here’s what you can do today to manage and track overdue tasks:
Recent research across psychology and organizational studies offers valuable insights into effective approaches for managing overdue tasks.
Research indicates that threat-based, status-driven notifications—such as blunt reminders that “this task is overdue”—reflect a controlling communication style that undermines intrinsic motivation, damages performance, and leads to more negative evaluations of employees. In contrast, autonomy-supportive approaches—offering informational feedback, asking open-ended questions about why a task is late, and providing context-sensitive, actor-specific reminders—have been shown to boost engagement, task completion, and well-being. These patterns hold across cultures and industries, underscoring the global applicability of supportive, contextual strategies for managing overdue work.
Self-Determination Theory posits that fulfilling basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—fosters autonomous motivation, while thwarting these needs via controlling practices leads to controlled motivation and amotivation. A large meta-analysis of SDT-based interventions confirms that controlled motivational contexts negatively affect engagement and well-being across educational and work settings.
Cognitive Evaluation Theory, a subtheory of SDT, distinguishes between informational feedback (which supports autonomy and competence) and controlling feedback (which undermines them). Empirical work shows that even positive feedback delivered in a controlling manner (e.g., “You must keep up this pace!”) reduces intrinsic motivation, whereas informational feedback preserves or enhances it.
In a seminal study, Butler & Nisan (1986) randomly assigned students to receive either non-threatening, task-related comments, normative grades, or no feedback. Those receiving task-related comments maintained higher intrinsic motivation and performed better on creative and analytic tasks, whereas normative grades (a controlling cue) did not sustain interest any more than no feedback.
Hardré & Reeve (2009) trained 25 Fortune 500 managers in autonomy-supportive strategies (e.g., providing rationales, non-controlling language). Five weeks post-training, these managers exhibited markedly more supportive behaviors, and their 169 employees reported higher autonomous motivation and greater workplace engagement compared to a control group.
Microsoft’s Nudge system uses machine-learning models to predict which pull requests are likely to stall, identifies the actor blocking progress, and sends tailored reminders. In large-scale trials, Nudge reduced pull request resolution time by 60% compared to generic overdue notifications, and 73% of recipients perceived the reminders as useful.
When following up on overdue tasks, consider these research-backed approaches:
By shifting from threat-based, status-driven reminders to supportive, informational approaches that respect team members’ autonomy and competence, you can more effectively manage overdue tasks and foster a healthier, more motivated work culture.
While waiting for automated escalation features, you can implement these best practices for effective follow-up:
How To > Make people accountable for tasks
How To > Ensure everyone in your team completes an approval or task
How To > Automatically track and run complex approval workflows
Tracking And Tasks > More about tasks