In our last article, we talked about my system for ensuring I kept promises to people. This time, we are addressing your system to ensure other people keep their promises to you.
You’ve been there before. You were leading a project, then handed off a task, and the moment you sent the message, your brain quietly filed it under “done.” For weeks, the task drifted. Then, days before the deadline, you remember it, panic, and chase down the person who was supposed to deliver. Often, they forgot too.
Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us.
The hidden problem with delegated tasks
When you hand a task to someone, three things tend to happen in your head. You mark it mentally complete, because the act of telling someone counts as the work being done. You assume they will come back to you, so their reply becomes your only trigger for follow-up. And you don’t write it down anywhere structured. It sits in a chat thread, an email, or worse, just in your memory.
The problem is that the other person is usually drowning in their own list. They didn’t take notes either. Their brain filed it the same way yours did. So you wait. They wait. Nobody is actively driving it forward. By the time someone notices, the task is overdue and the fix is expensive.
This is a coordination failure, not a competence one. People aren’t unreliable. The system around the handoff is.
What a “Waiting For” list actually is
A Waiting For list is exactly what it sounds like: one dedicated list, in one place, of everything you’ve delegated, requested, or are blocked on. Each entry usually includes the task you’re waiting on, the person who owes it to you, the date you made the request, and optionally, an expected delivery date.
That’s the entire system. No special app required. A note on your phone, a section in your reminders list, or even a dedicated section in your notebook, all of these work. The format matters far less than the discipline of having one home for these commitments.
Why it works
Open commitments take up cognitive bandwidth even when you aren’t actively thinking about them. Psychologists call this the Zeigarnik effect, which is the tendency for unfinished tasks to occupy mental space until they’re resolved or written down somewhere you trust.
Writing things down frees you from the low-level anxiety of trying to remember. It also flips ownership of follow-up. Instead of waiting passively for someone to come back to you, you now have a list that prompts you to chase, nudge, and check in at the right time.
How to build your Waiting For list in ten minutes
Pick your tool first. Use whatever you already open daily, whether that’s Notion, Todoist, Apple Notes, Reminders, or a paper journal. Don’t add friction by adopting a new app for this.
Then create a single section titled “Waiting For.” Write the name of the person, what you are waiting for, the date you made the request and create a reminder for the day you want to check back with them by.
Next, do a brain dump. Walk through your last two weeks of messages, emails, and meetings. Every task you handed off, every reply you’re expecting, every “I’ll get back to you” someone gave you, goes on the list.
After that, add new items as they happen. The moment you delegate or make a request, log it before you close the chat window. At the point of delegation, do well to request a proposed “check back by” date from them. This helps you to set your reminder for the right date. This is what makes the system work, and the one most people skip.
Finally, review weekly. Once a week, scan the entire list. Cross off what’s done. Nudge what’s overdue. Escalate or drop what has been sitting too long.
What can go on your list as a student or professional?
For university students, a Waiting For list often holds group project teammates who said they’d send their slides, a lecturer you emailed about an extension, a reference letter you requested from a previous tutor, or an admin office processing your form.
For career professionals, it might hold a contractor’s quote, legal review on a contract, client sign-off on a deliverable, a direct report’s draft, or a vendor responding to a brief.
The exact contents differ. The principle is identical. Anywhere you’re blocked on someone else’s action, that’s a Waiting For item.
Common mistakes
The list becomes a graveyard. People log items and never review them, or they have no reminders to check back on the dates promised. The list works only if you check it, so block ten minutes in your calendar each week and treat it as non-negotiable.
You only log “big” delegations. The system loses its power if you filter. Log small things too. The five-minute request someone forgot about is often exactly the kind of item that causes Friday afternoon scrambles.
You don’t track dates. Without a date, you can’t tell whether a task has been waiting two days or two months. The date turns a static list into a working follow-up engine.
Start this week
You don’t need a system overhaul to fix your follow-ups. Just start, and you’ll see that when you catch at least one item that would have otherwise gone missing, you will be grateful you took the step.
If you want help building a planning routine that actually sticks, Maximising Chronos runs productivity coaching in cohorts for professionals and students who want to take their time back. Check out our services.
