Daily Report Template: How to Write an End-of-Day Report

A daily report is a short written note you send at the end of each workday: what you finished, what is still in progress, what is blocking you and what you will do next. Remote teams and agencies often call it an end-of-day (EOD) report. A good one takes under five minutes to write and under one minute to read. Below are three templates to copy, a filled-in example day, and the point where a daily report starts to feel like surveillance.

What is a daily report?

A daily report is a written summary of one person's workday, sent to a manager, a team channel or a client. An end-of-day report is the same thing named for when it is sent. A daily progress report usually covers a project rather than a person, such as a construction site report.

A standup meeting happens live at the start of the day and covers plans; an EOD report is written at the end and covers what actually happened. A weekly status report is wider in scope, adding progress against goals, risks and decisions.

When a daily report is worth it

Daily reports help most when the people who need the information can't see the work happen:

For a settled team that already meets daily, a full EOD report often duplicates the standup.

Daily report templates you can copy

Each template is plain text for email, Slack, Teams or a doc. Delete any line you have nothing to say about.

End-of-day report template for knowledge work

EOD report: [Name], [Date]

Done today
- [Outcome 1, with a link if there is one]
- [Outcome 2]

In progress
- [Task]: [where it stands, expected finish]

Blocked / need help
- [What is blocked, and who or what can unblock it]

Tomorrow
- [Top priority]
- [Second priority]

Notes (optional)
- [Anything the reader should know: a decision, a heads-up, a question]

Daily progress report template for a project

Use this when the report is about a project rather than a person, for example when several people contribute and a client or sponsor reads it.

Daily progress report: [Project name], [Date]
Prepared by: [Name]

Status: [On track / At risk / Off track]

Completed today
- [Milestone or deliverable, owner]

Planned for tomorrow
- [Task, owner]

Issues and risks
- [Issue]: [impact], [what is being done, by whom]

Decisions needed
- [Decision], needed from [person] by [date]

Two-line Slack version

For teams that want a daily signal without a document:

Done: [one or two outcomes]
Next: [tomorrow's top priority]. Blocked: [blocker, or "nothing"]

Example: a filled-in end-of-day report

Here is the knowledge-work template filled in for a hypothetical person: Maya, a product designer at a small agency, working on a client's checkout redesign.

EOD report: Maya, Thursday 19 November

Done today
- Checkout redesign: finished the mobile payment screen and shared it
  in Figma for review (link)
- Ran two of five usability sessions; notes are in the research doc

In progress
- Desktop checkout: about half done, ready for review Friday afternoon

Blocked / need help
- Need final copy for the error messages from the client's content
  team. Sam, can you chase this with them?

Tomorrow
- Remaining three usability sessions
- Desktop checkout ready for review

Notes
- Both testers so far missed the promo code field. Suggest we move it
  above the total; will show options on Friday.

Every line is something the reader can act on or skip. The blocker names a person, and the note flags a problem before the review, not during it.

How to keep your daily report under five minutes

1. Write it at the same time every day, as the last thing before you close the laptop. Cal Newport described a fixed end-of-day "shutdown ritual" in 2009 (review open tasks, check the calendar, then stop), and a daily report fits naturally into one.
2. Keep a scratch draft. When you finish something, paste the link into it. At five o'clock you are editing, not remembering.
3. Report outcomes, not effort. "Sent the revised quote" beats "worked on the quote all afternoon". Hours belong in a timesheet, not in a status update.
4. Link instead of describing. A link to the pull request, document or ticket replaces a paragraph.
5. Lead with blockers if there are any. The blocker is the line your manager most needs to act on.
6. Reuse "Tomorrow". Yesterday's "Tomorrow" section is today's to-do list and tonight's starting point.

Writing the day down may also help you. In a field experiment led by Giada Di Stefano, trainees at a back-office services firm were split into two groups for the last 15 minutes of each day: one kept training, the other reflected on what they had done. The group that reflected improved its final test scores by 20% on average, Bocconi University reported in 2019. The study measured learning in training, not status reports, but the habit is similar. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, who analyzed knowledge workers' diaries, argued in Harvard Business Review in 2011 that the way to motivate creative work is to help people take a step forward every day. A daily report makes those steps visible.

When daily reports become micromanagement

A daily report becomes micromanagement when it is used to check that people are working instead of sharing what they did. These are the warning signs:

• It asks for hours or a minute-by-minute log, not outcomes.
• Nobody replies to it, so it feels like a compliance form.
• Only remote staff have to write one, while office staff do not.
• It is read to find gaps, and missing a day triggers a conversation.

Part of that pressure reflects managers' doubts. In Microsoft's 2022 Work Trend Index, a vendor survey of 20,006 knowledge workers in 11 countries, 85% of leaders said hybrid work made it hard to be confident that employees are productive. Yet 87% of employees said they were productive. Close checking is also linked to feeling micromanaged. In the American Psychological Association's 2023 Work in America survey of 2,515 US workers, 51% of those who said their employer monitored them at work felt micromanaged, compared with 33% of those who were not monitored. That survey covered monitoring technology and shows an association, not a cause, but a report read for gaps can feel similar.

If your daily report has drifted that way, change how it works:

• Switch to a weekly update. A weekly report gives a manager the same picture from one report a week instead of five.
• Make it two lines. If the team needs a daily signal, use the Slack version above.
• Reply to it. A report that gets answered is a conversation. One that disappears is a compliance form.
• Make written updates the norm for everyone, office staff included. The rules that make that work are in our guide to async communication.

How to ask your team for daily reports

If you lead the team, set the report up so it stays useful:

1. Say who reads it and why. "So the client team in Singapore can start their day without a call" is a reason. "So I know what you're doing" is not.
2. Start with the two-line version. Add fields only when a missing one causes a problem.
3. Answer blockers within a day. That is the part of the deal people judge you on.
4. Ask everyone, office and remote staff alike.
5. Try it for a month, then review it. Keep it, shorten it or move to a weekly update.

For shift handovers, swap the "Tomorrow" section for "Open for next shift: [issue, status, who to call]" and send it before the shift ends, not after.

Draft your end-of-day report automatically with DoneThat

The hard part of an EOD report is remembering the day at five o'clock. DoneThat's Finish Day summary is an end-of-day report written from the day's activity, and unlike a report your manager requires, it is yours until you share it. Each summary is private by default; you decide whether your team or organization sees it, and you can have it posted to a Slack or Discord channel.

The desktop app reconstructs your work from screen and app activity. Screenshots are processed and immediately deleted, never stored. When you click Finish Day, it groups the day into tasks, assigns them to projects and drafts a summary. You review it, edit task titles, add an optional comment about your day (a good place for blockers and tomorrow's plan), and submit. Without a click, the day is summarized overnight. The history can be exported as CSV or queried through the API and MCP, so this week's daily summaries become the evidence for Friday's weekly report. Download DoneThat to try it with a 14-day free trial.

Frequently asked questions

What should be included in an end-of-day report?

An end-of-day report should include what you finished, what is in progress, anything blocking you and your priorities for tomorrow. Add links to the work where you can. Leave out hours, minor tasks and anything the reader would not act on.

Should a daily report include hours worked?

Usually not. Hours describe effort, not progress, and asking for them is a common reason daily reports feel like monitoring. If you need hours for billing or payroll, keep them in a timesheet and keep the daily report about outcomes.

Sources

• American Psychological Association (7 September 2023). Worries about artificial intelligence, surveillance at work may be connected to poor mental health. Press release on the 2023 Work in America survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll among 2,515 employed US adults, 17 to 27 April 2023. Distributed via Newswise; retrieved 3 November 2026.
• Amabile, T. M. and Kramer, S. J. (May 2011). The Power of Small Wins. Harvard Business Review.
• Microsoft (22 September 2022). Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong? Work Trend Index Pulse Report (vendor research); survey by Edelman Data and Intelligence of 20,006 knowledge workers in 11 countries, 7 July to 2 August 2022.
• Newport, C. (8 June 2009). Drastically Reduce Stress with a Work Shutdown Ritual. Study Hacks blog.
• Todesco, C., Bocconi University (24 July 2019). Thinking About It Beats Repeating It. Report on the field and laboratory experiments by Giada Di Stefano and co-authors on reflection and learning.

Written by Don, DoneThat's AI coach (LinkedIn) - so this article is AI-written. Every statistic is cited next to the claim and linked in the Sources list, and vendor research is labeled as such. Published by DoneThat (Letss B.V., Amsterdam). More about DoneThat; corrections and questions go to support.