I hate Tuesdays! Why? In one of my previous jobs Tuesday was project report writing day. Enough said! It filled me with dread and although that job is long in the past I still get that familiar sinking feeling in my stomach.
It was such a tedious, dull, unrewarding part of the job. I used to put it off until I had at least two email reminders and one phone call. And I wasn’t alone – I’ve spoken to countless project managers over the years who feel exactly the same. There’s something universally soul-crushing about project reporting when it’s done badly.
The good news is it doesn’t have to be like that. Before I explain how to make it better, let me tell you exactly why it was the lowlight of my week.
Why is it so awful?
All of the chasing
I was constantly having to look up different files in different locations and speak to people who were hardly ever around. Plus I had to constantly chase my team members for updates on their progress. Half my Tuesday was spent tracking people down rather than actually writing the report. I’d spend hours sending ‘quick update?’ emails and leaving voicemails, only to get responses trickling in on Wednesday when the report was already submitted.
The data was never up to date
More often than not it would be changed at least once before my report was submitted. I’d finally get all the information compiled, formatted and ready to send then someone would pop up with ‘Oh, actually, that figure changed yesterday’ or ‘We hit that milestone on Friday, didn’t I tell you?’ No. No, you didn’t tell me. And now I get to redo half the report. Thanks for that.
The information I was asked for kept changing
Every week I’d be told to either add something or take something out. There was never any consistency. One week they wanted risk assessments in detail, the next week it was just a traffic light system. Then they wanted budget breakdowns by work package, then by month, then by both. It felt like they were making it up as they went along and I was left scrambling to reformat everything to match whatever the flavour of the week happened to be.
No two reports were ever the same
Actually that’s an exaggeration – in the six months I was in that particular job I was given 5 different project status report templates. Yes, you read that right. The template changed almost monthly! Each time meant using a new layout, new terminology and new ways of presenting the same information. It was like they thought changing the template would somehow make the projects run better. Spoiler: it didn’t.
It never seemed to go anywhere
Once I had spent hours of my time collating, sorting, documenting and prettying up the data into a usable format I would send it away and… Nothing, nada, zilch. It would disappear into the ether, never to be heard from again. No feedback, no questions, no acknowledgement that anyone had even read it. I genuinely started to wonder if anyone was looking at them at all or if they just went straight into some digital filing cabinet to gather virtual dust. There’s actually research that shows how destructive this lack of feedback can be. There’s actually academic research that validates this frustration. A 2014 study published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems found that when project teams felt their reports weren’t valued or that auditors were simply looking to catch them out, they adopted ‘defensive reporting tactics’—essentially gaming the system rather than being honest. This created what researchers called a ‘self-reinforcing cycle of distrust’ that made reporting even less useful for everyone involved.”
Why it matters (even when it feels pointless)
Now, despite everything I’ve just moaned about, I need to be honest: project reporting does matter. A lot.
When I moved on to another role I was lucky enough to be somewhere that took reporting seriously and made it easy for the project managers to do it. That’s when I saw what good reporting looks like and why it’s worth doing properly.
Good project reporting provides visibility. Your stakeholders, sponsors and senior management need to know what’s happening. They’re making decisions based on your reports – deciding where to allocate resources, whether to escalate issues, when to communicate with customers. If your report is late, incomplete or inaccurate, those decisions get made in the dark.
It also provides accountability. When things are written down regularly there’s a clear record of progress, decisions and commitments. It protects you as much as it informs others. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone back to old reports to prove that yes, I did flag that risk three months ago or to show exactly when scope creep started happening.
And honestly? It helps you think. The act of pulling together a status report forces you to step back and look at the whole project. It’s surprisingly easy to get caught up in the day-to-day firefighting and lose sight of the bigger picture. A weekly report makes you confront whether you’re really on track or just running on a hamster wheel.
Common reporting pitfalls (and how to avoid them)
Having been on both sides; the miserable Tuesday report writer and the person reviewing dozens of project reports, I’ve seen the same mistakes crop up again and again.
Writing for yourself instead of your audience
Your project team might understand what ‘Phase 2 UAT remediation cycle 3’ means but your CEO probably doesn’t and doesn’t care. Think about who’s reading your report and what they need to know. Usually they want the headlines: are we on track, what’s at risk and what decisions need to be made?
Burying the important stuff
If your project is about to miss a critical deadline, don’t hide it in paragraph seven under a subheading. Put it right at the top. Use a clear RAG status (Red/Amber/Green) and make sure people can see immediately if something needs attention. I’ve seen reports where everything’s marked green and then you read the detail and discover they’re three weeks behind schedule but ‘confident of catching up’. That’s not green. That’s wishful thinking.
Death by detail
Your report doesn’t need to document every single task completed that week. Summarise. Group things. Focus on what’s significant. If someone wants the minutiae, they can ask for it or look at your project plan. The report should be the executive summary, not the complete works.
Being consistently late. If your report is due Wednesday morning and you send it Thursday afternoon it’s not useful anymore. People have already made decisions, had meetings and moved on. Timeliness matters more than perfection. It’s better to send an 80% complete report on time than a 100% perfect report a day late.
How to make reporting less painful
So what’s the solution? How do you make reporting something that doesn’t ruin your Tuesday (or whatever day you’ve been cursed with)?
Standardise your template and stick to it
Agree on a format that works and then don’t change it every five minutes. Your stakeholders will get used to where to find information and you’ll get faster at completing it. If something’s not working, fine – but change it once after proper consultation not on a whim every month.
Keep your project data current
Don’t wait until report day to update everything. If you’re tracking progress in spreadsheets or project plans, update them as things happen. Make it part of your daily or weekly rhythm. Then when it’s report time, you’re pulling together existing data rather than starting from scratch.
Set clear expectations with your team
Tell people when you need updates and what format you need them in. Make it a standard part of your team’s weekly routine. And if someone’s consistently not providing updates, that’s a conversation you need to have – it’s not just about the report, it’s about them not communicating properly.
Automate what you can
This is the real game-changer. If you’re manually copying data from one place to another, reformatting the same information every week or clicking through multiple systems to compile a report you’re wasting time. Modern project management tools can generate reports automatically from your existing data. Click a button, export to whatever format you need, done.
Create a feedback loop
Make sure people actually read and respond to your reports. If you’re sending them into a void, push back. Ask for feedback. Request that key decisions are documented. When people know their reports are actually being used, they’re much more motivated to do them well.
Schedule it properly
Don’t leave report writing until the last minute or try to squeeze it in between meetings. Block out proper time for it. And ideally, pick a time when your data is most up-to-date and people are available if you need to clarify anything.
The modern approach to project reporting
The reality is, in 2025, no one should be spending hours manually compiling project reports. The technology exists to make this so much easier and organisations that haven’t adopted it are just burning money and demoralising their project managers.
Good project management platforms integrate all your project data in one place. Your tasks, timelines, resources, risks, issues, budgets – it’s all there and it’s all current. When you need a report the system generates it from that live data. You’re not copying and pasting or reformatting or chasing people for information that should already be captured.
If you’re sick of the tedious cycle of manual reporting, it’s worth looking at tools that can actually help. We built Psoda specifically because we’d experienced these same frustrations. We have all the status reports you’ll ever need built right in – just click a button and you’re done. You can export them to any format you fancy or even run them in the background and have the finished report emailed to you automatically.
But whether you use Psoda or another tool, the principle is the same: your project data should live in one place, stay current automatically and generate reports without hours of manual labour. Anything less is a waste of your time and skills.
Project managers should be managing projects, not wrestling with Word documents and spreadsheets every Tuesday.
Final thoughts
Looking back at that job where I dreaded Tuesdays, I realise now that the problem wasn’t project reporting itself. The problem was that we’d set up a system that made it unnecessarily difficult and seemingly pointless. When reporting is done well – with the right tools, clear expectations and genuine engagement from stakeholders – it’s actually quite valuable.
I don’t hate Tuesdays anymore because I’ve learnt that project reporting doesn’t have to be a problem. It just has to be done properly.
And if you’re still stuck in that cycle of dread and procrastination, maybe it’s time to ask yourself: is this a problem with reporting or is it a problem with how we’re doing reporting? Because I promise you, it can be so much better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a status report to… actually, never mind. It’s already done. Automatically. While I was writing this blog post.
