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Avoiding task debt

Preventing task debt in your workflows

Section titled “Preventing task debt in your workflows”
Worker holding back a giant boulder of overdue tasks beside a green done pile

Task debt happens when incomplete tasks pile up faster than your team finishes them. You prevent it when you build your templates, by choosing which steps expire on their own, when tasks fall due, and who gets them.

What task debt looks like in Tallyfy

Section titled “What task debt looks like in Tallyfy”

A task goes overdue when its deadline passes. It stays overdue until someone completes it, hides it or gives it a new deadline. Each overdue task shows under Overdue in the Tasks view, marks its process as Overdue in the Tracker view, and turns up in the assignee’s digest emails. Once that list fills with work nobody needed, the late tasks that matter get buried in it, and people spend more time sorting their task lists than doing the tasks on them.

Using expiring tasks for information sharing

Section titled “Using expiring tasks for information sharing”

Expiring tasks are a Tallyfy task type for information people should see but don’t have to act on. Assignees can click ACKNOWLEDGE once they’ve read it. If nobody does by the deadline, the task completes itself and drops off active task lists, so it doesn’t pile up as overdue work.

Good fits are a weekly update people can read if they have time, an FYI notice, optional training material, or a status report nobody has to sign off. Don’t use it for anything someone has to do, because the task completes at its deadline whether or not anyone opened it.

Designing steps that don’t pile up

Section titled “Designing steps that don’t pile up”

Bundle related work. Instead of creating ten separate approval tasks, combine them into one review task with multiple form fields. That leaves one deadline to miss instead of ten.

Set realistic deadlines. Each step’s deadline is set in the template, in the Timings row on the step’s Basics tab, and counts from the process launch or from another step. Base each deadline on how long the step has actually taken in past processes, then add some buffer.

Eliminate low-value tasks. Audit your templates regularly. If a step keeps getting skipped and nothing bad follows, take it out of the template.

Use conditional logic. Configure automations to hide steps a process doesn’t need, based on answers in a form field. For example, hide the approval step for low-risk items. Automations can also change who a step is assigned to, based on the same answers.

Assigning the work

Section titled “Assigning the work”

Balance workloads. Before assigning tasks, check what people already have. In the Tasks view, filter by Assignee to see one person’s tasks, and sort by Most Delayed to put their overdue tasks at the top. Tallyfy’s tracker view can also filter processes by assigned person.

Use job title assignments. Assign routine steps to job titles rather than specific people. Whoever launches the process picks who fills each job title for that run, so they can give the work to someone with room, or to someone else when the usual person is unavailable.

Group assignments with Take Over. For tasks that need one person from a group, assign to the group and let someone claim ownership via Take Over. Whoever takes it over becomes its only assignee and the others are removed from it, so nobody is left assuming someone else will handle it.

Managing existing task debt

Section titled “Managing existing task debt”

To clear task debt you already have:

  1. Apply the two-minute rule. Scan your overdue tasks and finish anything that takes less than two minutes right away.

  2. Batch similar tasks. Group related overdue items and handle them together. In the Tasks view, filter by template to list every open task from one process, such as all your expense report approvals.

  3. Convert to expiring tasks. If an informational step keeps getting pushed, change its step type to Expiring in the template. Processes you launch after that will complete it at its deadline. Processes already running keep the template version they started with, so clear their open copies with the next step.

  4. Hide tasks that won’t get done. In a running process, open the task’s three-dot menu and choose Hide This Task. Add a comment saying why in the dialog that opens. Hidden tasks drop out of everyone’s task views and don’t count against deadlines. Tallyfy keeps the task with its form data and comments, and you can show it again from the same menu.

  5. Give the rest new deadlines. For tasks that matter but can’t happen immediately, click the task’s menu (…) and choose Edit Deadline to pick a date that can be met. The task leaves the overdue list and stays with the same assignee. Tasks whose deadlines count from it move too.

Finding steps that keep running late

Section titled “Finding steps that keep running late”

Once a month, filter the Tasks view by Template and set Task State to Overdue to see which of that template’s steps are late. If the same steps keep turning up, eliminate them, extend their deadlines, or convert them to expiring tasks.

Ask your team to flag a step that doesn’t add value in a comment on the task, and to @mention whoever edits the template so it reaches them.

Tallyfy Analytics is an add-on that copies your process and task data, including completion times, into a database you can query or connect to a BI tool. Use it to find steps that run late in process after process, then change the step itself: its deadline, its assignee, or whether it’s needed at all.

Setting up expiring tasks

Section titled “Setting up expiring tasks”

You’ll need rights to edit the template.

  1. Go to your template editor.
  2. Add a step or click an existing one, then pick Expiring from the Type dropdown in the details panel.
  3. On the Basics tab, expand the Timings row and set the deadline. The task completes itself at that moment, so leave people long enough to read it first.
  4. Name it so people can tell it’s optional, like “FYI: Weekly metrics update” or “Optional: Training video available”, and say in the description that it’s optional or informational.

Expiring tasks still trigger notifications, so assignees know information is available.

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