How to Set Up Task Statuses

A task status is the shared answer to "where is this?" If the list is long, people invent private meanings and the board lies. If the list is short and each name maps to a group everyone understands, the board is readable. Setting statuses is that mapping. It is not a workflow engine, and it is not a copy of your hiring pipeline.

The four groups

Every project status in Dayzen belongs to one group:

Group	Meaning
Not started	Work has not begun
In progress	Someone is doing it
Done	The work is finished
Closed	The task is finished and no longer active

The name people see can be more specific than the group. "Ready for review" can sit in In progress. "Won't do" can sit in Closed. The group is what the product uses when it needs a coarse answer, including when a cycle closes and unfinished work is anything not Done or Closed.

You cannot add a fifth group. You can add names inside the four.

Keep the visible list short

A useful status list for many delivery projects:

1. To do — Not started
2. In progress — In progress
3. In review — In progress
4. Done — Done
5. Closed — Closed

Five names is enough to see a board. Eight names is a meeting. If two names would be explained with the same sentence, keep one.

Kanban columns are these names, in order. A column is not a new kind of object. Kanban vs Gantt is about which picture to open. The columns are still this status list. There is no work-in-progress limit on a column. Do not design the board as if a column will refuse extra cards.

How to choose names

Write the sentence a teammate should believe when they see the status.

• "To do" means nobody has started, and the task is accepted.
• "In progress" means an owner is working this week.
• "In review" means the owner is waiting on a specific reviewer, not on the world.
• "Done" means the result exists.
• "Closed" means you are finished discussing it.

If you cannot write the sentence, do not add the name. "Blocked" is the status people want and then misuse. A blocked task is usually still In progress or Not started, with a dependency that says what it waits on. A status called Blocked hides the dependency and becomes a junk drawer.

Templates reuse a list you already trust

A status template is a named list of those names and groups. It can belong to the organization or to a workspace, and a workspace can use one as its default. When you create a project, you start from a template instead of retyping columns.

Use a template when a second project should mean the same thing by "In review." Do not use one template for every kind of work in the company. A template is a copy of a list that already works, not a corporate standard you invent in a workshop before any project exists.

Build the list on one real project. When the names survive two weeks, save them as a template. That is the whole template practice. It does not need a second guide.

What a status is not

Not a hiring stage. Recruitment uses its own stages. Those stages are not project columns. If you need the hiring version, read hiring pipeline stages and keep it on the hiring record.

Not an automation. Changing a status does not send email, create a task, or start an invoice. There is no workflow product behind the column. People move the task.

Not a priority and not a date. Urgent is a priority. Thursday is a due date. Neither is a status. If the board is sorted by status, a due date still lives on the calendar.

Not a section. A section is a part of the project, such as Design or Launch. A task keeps its section when the status changes.

A setup you can finish in one sitting

1. List the real steps on one live project. Cross out any step that is a person, a date, or a department.
2. Map each remaining name to Not started, In progress, Done, or Closed.
3. Delete names that share a sentence.
4. Order them the way a card should move, left to right.
5. Use that list on the project.
6. After it holds up, save a template for the next similar project.

Skip the workshop that tries to standardize the company first. One honest list beats a template nobody follows.

A bad list and a better one

Bad: Backlog, Ready, Started, Waiting, Waiting on client, Waiting on us, Review, QA, Done, Done-done, Archived, On hold.

People will not agree which Waiting to use. "Done-done" is an argument, not a status.

Better: To do, In progress, In review, Done, Closed. Client waits are visible because the client is the assignee or because a task blocks this one. On hold, if you truly need it, is Not started or Closed with a note, not a sixth lifestyle.

Who should be allowed to rename columns

Renaming a status renames history's label for every task currently in it. Let one owner of the project change names. If everyone can add a column, the board becomes a diary of moods. The template then saves the diary, and the next project inherits it.

After the first real week

Use the list on live tasks before you defend it. At the end of the week, look for three smells:

• A status with no tasks, which means the name was theoretical.
• A status with most of the tasks, which means it has become a waiting room. Split it only if the two piles need different next actions. Otherwise the name is fine and the team is stuck for a different reason.
• Two statuses people use interchangeably. Merge them. The board gets clearer when a column disappears, not when a definition is added to a wiki.

Ask one person who did not set up the columns to explain each name without notes. If they cannot, the sentence you wrote at setup never left your head. Rename to their words if their words are precise. Do not add a seventh column to compensate for a vague one.

When the list survives that week, save the template. Note which kind of project it fits. A delivery project and a content calendar may honestly differ. Two delivery projects that differ only because two managers prefer different synonyms should share the template. The argument is about words, and it should happen once.

Closed deserves a special mention. Use it when the task should leave the active board but you may still want to find it. Done can mean the result exists and someone may still confirm it. If your team treats those sentences as identical, use one name and map it to Done, and do not keep a Closed column "for later." Empty groups teach people to ignore the end of the board.

Conclusion

Set task statuses by choosing a few names and mapping each to Not started, In progress, Done, or Closed. Use those names as the board columns. Save a template only after a real project has kept the list. Do not copy hiring stages, do not expect the column to enforce a limit, and do not expect a status change to run a workflow. The product page is /pms.