What is a status report

The point of a status report is to make sure you work on the right things. From personal experience \n that's a lot harder than it seems. It's really easy to get into a rabbit hole without noticing. Also\n I've wasted a lot of time because I worked on the intuitive right direction until my teacher\n gave me feedback. At first I often needed to at the minimum recycle work if not restart from scratch\n because my intuition was that wrong. The model prevents that problem because it requires you to find an \n exising example of the right direction you'll take heavy inspiration from. \n\n \n

Sample good sample report

• Project Name: Learn HTTP 101\n

• Motivation: \"I want a well paying job indoors that doesn't require physical activity or prioritize social skills.\"\n

• Goal: \"Learn HTTP 101 by writing guides to it in Val Town I would've liked to have when learning.\"\n

• Model: Your first form.\n

• Status now: I completed half of the blog post\n

• Status last week: I completed seven out of the ten parts of the outline and thoroughly proofread each part.\n

• Progress since last week: I finished the outline. I learned how to teach pratical code with active learning by reading link.\n

• Activity that didn't move status forward: I tried to get advice on writing by searching for blog post guides. I didn't find anything applicable when I googled how to write a blog post, guide to blog post, and blog post writing 101.\n

• Next Steps: My plan is to finish my first draft and ask for feedback.\n

• Open Questions: Could you please check my first draft? I'm not worried about minor problems since it's just a first draft. I'm concerned I'm being unclear or rambling a lot again. What do you think?

\n\n

How to write a quality status report?

I'll walk you through what you need to do to write a great status report step-by-step.

\n\n

Project Name

You want a name that is very clear and reasonably short. Otherwise you'll find yourself working\n on things that are generally related and not what you should be working on.

Examples:

\n\n

❌ Bad: \"Learn programming.\"

\n\n

I don't know what type of programming the project covers.

There is no way to know when you finish the project because you could literally spend decades studying\nprogramming and there would still be a lot left to learn.

\n\n
\n

✅ Good: \"Learn HTTP 101\"

\n\n

HTTP 101 is a small enough knowledge base that it's reasonable to master completely.

HTTP 101 is a specific and concrete goal so it's easy to measure my progress.

\n\n

Motivation

Motivation is the reason you're pursuing the goal. Often I find what's needed to complete a \nproject is very different than what I expected. I need to check my motivation then to make sure\nI'm still working on the most effective way to achieve it.

\n\n

Examples:

\n\n

❌ Bad: \"I want to have a good career skill.\"

\n\n

The problem is that you're not answering the question why is programming the right career skill.

\n \n
\n

✅ Good: \"I want a well paying job indoors that doesn't require physical activity or prioritize social skills.\"

\n\n

That's a good motivation because it's describing a very specific set of the desires.

\n \n

❌ Bad: \"I want to make my parents happy.\"

\n \n

The problem is that you didn't specified how it'll make your parents happy. How do you know that's the most effective way to make them happy?

\n \n
\n

✅ Good: I want to improve my relationship with my parents by getting rid of long lasting friction by showing that I have a concrete plan to get marketable skills.

\n\n

This is a better motivation for two reasons. The first is that improving a relationship is more specific \nthan making someone happy. The second is that you specify how you're improving the relationship.

Goal

The goal is how you achieve your motivation.

\n\n

Examples:\n\n

❌ Bad: \"Learn HTTP 101\"\n\n

The problem with the goal is that it doesn't say how you're going to learn HTTP.\n\n

✅ Good: \"Learn HTTP 101 by writing guides to it in Val Town I would've liked to have when learning.\"\n\n

This is a good goal because I can clearly see if I'm learning because if I can write a guide to a \n concept I learned it.\n

Additionally I can measure my progress by seeing how much of HTTP 101 I covered.\n \n\n

❌ Bad: \"I want a programming job.\"\n\n

The problem with the goal is that a job in a startup is very different than an established tech \n company. Similarly there's a big difference between working in a tech company and working in a \n company that is technologically behind.\n\n \n

✅ Good: \"I want a job at a low tech company where I can modernize the company.\"\n\n

This is a good goal because I'm aiming for a specific type of job and can predict what the \n relevant skills I need to learn are.\n \n

Model

The point of a model is to find a pre-existing example of something similar to what you're trying\n to achieve so you focus your effort on the right things.

\n\n Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"How the Web Works, HTTP Request/Response Cycle.\"\n\n

The problem with using that as a model is that it's only a good model for teaching theory so I \n had to guess what I should do for the active learning. It turned out that I was completely wrong on how to \n teach active learning.\n\n\n \n

✅ Good: \"Your first form.\"\n\n

This is a good model because it teaches theory, practical knowledge, and uses active learning.\n \n

Status now

The point of the Status now is to make sure you know how close you are to your goal.

\n\n

Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"Finished the outline and completed half of the blog post.\"\n\n

The problem is that finishing the outline goes in the progress section not in the Status now. After all\n the Status now is meant to show how close you are to the goal and the fact you started the blog post\n obviously means you finished the outline.\n\n \n

✅ Good: \"I completed half of the blog post.\"\n\n

This is a good Status now because it's only focused on the task you're working on at the moment.\n \n\n \n \n

Status last week

The point of the status after the last check in is to make it easy to compare to the Status now so \n you can easily tell the progress you're making.

\n\n

Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"Wrote part of an outline.\"\n\n

The problem is that it's unclear how much of the outline was written. \n \n

✅ Good: \"I completed seven out of the ten parts of the outline and thoroughly proofread each part.\"\n\n

This is a good Status last week because you know exactly how much of the outline is \n completed, how much is left, and that the three parts are polished.\n\n

Progress since last week

Progress since the last check in is covering the change and/or delta since the last check-in.

\n\n

Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"I read five articles on outline writing. The links are …. I also finished the outline.\n\n

The problem is that I don't know why any of those articles are relevant.\n \n

✅ Good: \"I finished the outline.\"\n\n

This is a good Progress since last week because it's listing a concrete accomplishment that \n moved you forward.\n\n

✅ Good: \"I learned how to teach pratical code with active learning by reading link.\"\n\n

This is a good Progress since last week because it's saying what you learned through reading \n the article and giving the link to the article.\n\n

Activity that didn’t move status forward

Activity that didn’t move status forward is where you put things you tried that didn't move you \n closer to the goal. The point of recording it is that otherwise you could work very hard on\n trying plausible paths forward but look like you did nothing because none of those plausible \n paths worked. Additionally if you're asking for help, it's good form to say what the dead ends are.\n\n

Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"I spent a half hour looking for a model on how to write HTTP guides.\n\n

The problem is that it's specific in the wrong place. The length of time spent looking doesn't help\n anyone find a good model.\n \n

✅ Good: \"I didn't find a model on how to write HTTP guides when I tried searching HTTP guide, \n HTTP lesson, and HTTP course on both Twitter and Hackernews.\"\n\n

This is a good activity that didn’t move status forward because it's specifying the search terms that \n didn't work and where you searched.\n\n

❌ Bad: \"I read five HTTP guides. The links are ….\n\n

The problem is that I don't know why reading those articles didn't move me closer to accomplishing the goal.\n \n

✅ Good: \"I read five HTTP guides. They weren't helpful because they were focused \n on programming environments that use npm and that's too different from my programming environment of Val\n Town. The links are ….\n\n

This is a good activity that didn’t move status forward because I specified why they weren't helpful \n and what needed to change to make sure they are helpful.\n\n \n

Next Steps

The point of the next steps are to make a plan on what to do next. That's valuable because I found \n deciding what I need to work on beforehand can be the difference between smoothly starting work and \n struggling to.

\n\n

Examples:

❌ Bad: \"My plan is to finish the blog post.

\n\n

The problem is that it's unclear what is needed to finish. A first draft needs a lot less polishing than a \n final one. I also don't know if the reason there's no plan to ask for feedback is because there's no need\n or if it's considered an obvious thing to do.

\n \n

✅ Good: \"My plan is to finish my first draft and ask for feedback.

\n\n

This is a good next step because I'm specifying the amount of polishing and plan to ask for feedback.\n\n

Open Questions

The point of the open questions is to ask for help from a teacher, boss, or someone else.

\n\n Examples:\n

❌ Bad: \"Could you please check my first draft?\n\n

The problem is that I'm not being clear about why I'm asking for help. I'm asking the other person\n to guess what the problem is. While the other person is better than me at the task, it's extra work\n for them to guess what the problem is. Additionally you might not notice a problem that they do that is so obvious and\n problematic they only advise you on one problem instead of all of them.\n\n

✅ Good: \"Could you please check my first draft? I'm not worried about minor problems since it's just \n a first draft. I'm concerned I'm being unclear or rambling a lot again. What do you think?\n\n

This is a good open question because I tell them what they shouldn't worry about and what are the two \n problems I'm concerned about.\n\n

Template to copy

Project Name:
Motivation:
Goal:
Model:
Status now:
Status last week:
Progress since last week:
Activity that didn't move status forward:
Next Steps:
Open Questions:

\n \n \n`;\n\n return c.html(html);\n};\n\nconst app = new Hono();\napp.get(\"/\", statusGuide);\nexport default app.fetch;","deleted","label",[98],"permalink","https://www.val.town/x/willthereader/WillpersonalWebsite/code/statusGuide","extension","actionData","errors"]