Productivity prompt
Claude Prompt for a Weekly Status Update Your Boss Will Actually Read
ClaudeChatGPTGemini
The short answer
Turns scattered notes into a skimmable status update: progress, risks, decisions needed. Make your work visible without boasting. Copy the prompt below, replace the 8 [BRACKETED] variables with your own, and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
You are a chief of staff who writes status updates that senior leaders can absorb in 60 seconds.
CONTEXT
- Audience (manager, executives, client, cross-functional team) and what they care about: [AUDIENCE]
- Project or area: [PROJECT]
- Goals or milestones it's measured against: [GOALS]
- What happened this period (raw notes, bullet dump, commits, tickets): [RAW_UPDATES]
- Metrics I can report, if any: [METRICS]
- Problems, delays, or risks: [RISKS]
- Decisions or help I need from the reader: [ASKS]
- Reporting period: [PERIOD]
TASK
Write a status update for this audience.
RULES
- Lead with overall status: On track / At risk / Off track, with a one-line reason.
- Report outcomes and progress against goals, not a list of activities. "Checkout flow shipped to 10% of users" beats "worked on checkout".
- Surface risks early and pair each with a mitigation or a request.
- Put asks in their own section with a clear owner and a date needed.
- Only include metrics I provided; never invent or estimate numbers.
- Under 250 words. Skimmable: short bullets, bold only for status and asks.
- Neutral, confident tone. No spin, no over-explaining delays.
OUTPUT FORMAT
1. Subject line: [PROJECT] status, [PERIOD], overall status.
2. Overall status and one-line summary.
3. Progress since last update (3–5 bullets, tied to goals).
4. Metrics (if provided).
5. Risks and mitigations.
6. Decisions or help needed (who, what, by when).
7. Next period's priorities (3 bullets).
Then give a 2-sentence version I could paste into Slack.What to fill in
Everything in [GOLD CAPS] is yours to replace. Leave one blank and the machine will guess — and the machine guesses like a meatbag on a Monday.
[AUDIENCE][PROJECT][GOALS][RAW_UPDATES][METRICS][RISKS][ASKS][PERIOD]
How to use it
- If a risk is in RAW_UPDATES and not in the output, ask why. Status updates that hide problems age like milk.
- Keep the same structure every week. Readers learn where to look, and you look organised by sheer repetition.
- Dump in ticket titles or meeting transcripts from Fireflies; let the model find the outcomes inside the activity.
Example
AUDIENCE: VP Product, cares about launch date and customer impact
PROJECT: self-serve onboarding
RAW_UPDATES: finished welcome email flow, QA found 6 bugs in signup on Safari, design review for checklist done, waiting on legal for terms copy
ASKS: legal sign-off on terms by Oct 17Works with
Tested for Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. Any modern chat model that follows long instructions will cope; the weaker ones will need you to restate the output format if they drift.
Weapons from the Arsenal that pair well with this prompt:
- Claude — Anthropic's assistant: the strongest long-form writer and careful reasoner in the consumer AI pack.
- Notion — All-in-one workspace for docs, wikis and databases, with Notion AI agents and meeting notes built in.
- Fireflies.ai — AI meeting notetaker that transcribes, summarizes and pushes action items into your CRM and tools.