How To Write, Assign, and Track Action Items

Imagine that you’ve just wrapped up a meeting with your marketing team about launching a new social media marketing campaign for your ecommerce business. You look down at your meeting agenda and the long to-do list from your meeting notes, only to discover you still don’t know exactly what items need attention and who is responsible for completing them. What you need now are action items.

Whether you’re a solopreneur trying to handle all of the tasks that go into running a business or a CEO needing to keep several team members on the same page, learn how you can craft effective action items to set expectations and get important tasks done on time.

What are action items?

An action item is a written statement that defines the details of a specific task, who’s responsible for it, and by when it needs to be completed. Project managers and business owners can use action items to detail the work that goes into a task and assign responsibility to a specific task owner.

By establishing a due date as well as an assignee, action items can keep team members accountable to turn around work in a timely manner. Going back to the social media marketing example above, you could write an action item to “set up a business account on Instagram” and assign it to your social media manager with a deadline for one week out.

Not all tasks can fit within a single action item; a complex task might include several action items. For example, one of your larger tasks could be to perform an audit of your existing social media accounts. You could then break it down into several action items, like analyzing engagement on TikTok or creating a survey for the followers of your Facebook business page.

Action item vs. action plan

An action item is different from an action plan—which details a step-by-step plan for achieving a goal, including information about process, workflow, budget, resources, and project timeline. Action items can fit within an action plan to detail specific activities related to the project, but they don’t cover larger considerations like project goals or timelines.

How to write effective action items

• Identify the 3 Ws of each action item
• Use the SMART framework for action items
• Implement project management tools to monitor action items
• Include additional details in your action items

Here are some best practices to consider when writing action items for your business.

Identify the 3 Ws of each action item

You can write action items using the three Ws framework to break down the key attributes of a task with three questions:

• What? What specific task needs to be completed? 

• Who? Who is responsible for the task?

• When? When does the task need to be completed by?

What

When writing what will go into a specific task, use an active verb denoting a specific action. Avoid vague descriptions of tasks or incomplete notes: For example, “product photos” is a less useful action item than “Post product photos on Pinterest.” Here are a few examples of social media marketing action items using this framework:

• Rewrite profile bio on Instagram

• Create a three-month content calendar draft for the YouTube channel

• Verify business profile on Pinterest

• Register for TikTok Shop

Who

Choose a designated person for every action item. Although you can assign action items to departments, opt for specific team members to avoid confusion.

For example, you could assign the rewrite of your Instagram profile bio to a specific copywriter and the YouTube content calendar to a content specialist or project manager, rather than simply assigning tasks to your marketing department.

When

Set clear deadlines for your action items. If an action item relates to a larger project, evaluate your overall project timeline and identify how much time you can afford to take for each action item within that project.

For example, if you have an overall timeline of two weeks for a comprehensive social media audit, you can set specific due dates for smaller action items like compiling top-performing posts or creating brand guidelines for future reference. Make your action item due dates as specific as possible; you can opt for a set time frame like 24 hours, three days, a week, the following project meeting, or set an actual date.

For example:

• Rewrite profile bio on Instagram by next Monday.

• Create a three-month content calendar draft for the YouTube channel by September 3.

• Verify business profile on Pinterest by the end of this week.

• Register for TikTok Shop before next project meeting (August 28).

Use the SMART framework for action items

The SMART approach is a strategic framework used to set effective goals, but it can apply to action items as well. Here’s how you can use the SMART framework to evaluate the quality of your action items:

• Specific. Write specific action items with as much relevant detail as needed.

• Measurable. Can the results of your action items be measured by clear metrics or deliverables? For example, “Reach out to 10 potential influencer partners” is a more measurable goal than “Begin the influencer outreach process.”

• Attainable. Is the scope of your action item realistically attainable? If the work involved in a specific task feels overwhelming or overly time-consuming for one team member, you can likely break that item down into several smaller action items.

• Relevant. Is your action item relevant to a specific project and your business goals at large?

• Time-bound. Include specific deadlines in action items to keep assignees accountable for timely delivery. 

Implement project management tools to monitor action items

You can use project management tools like Asana and ProjectManager to create and organize action items, build out action items into a task list, and even use action items as the building blocks for other types of project management charts, maps, and grids.

For example, using Asana, you can automatically turn your list of action items into a Gantt chart format—a type of bar chart with each action item represented by a horizontal task bar along a timeline. Project management software can help you track progress more efficiently, but they aren’t strictly necessary—you can keep track of action items in a notebook, Google Doc, or whatever method works best for you.

Include additional details in your action items

Some action items can benefit from more specific details about the task. For example:

• Status. Consider including a status update for a specific action item to quickly identify tasks that need to be assigned as well as in-progress tasks, completed tasks, and overdue tasks.

• Priority level. You can also include the priority level of project tasks in your action items, noting them as low, medium, or high priority to help you and your team prioritize tasks.

• Creation date. Consider noting the creation date of a specific action item for future reference.

• Check-in date. If a particular action item will take an extended amount of time, consider including a check-in date (like your next meeting date) where you can meet with the assignee of that action item and make sure progress is on track.

• Attachments. If a specific action item requires any relevant documents or assets (like a brand logo for a social media post), you can attach those to your action items using a software tool.