Work time planner for executing priorities in startups

The Template Work time planner for executing priorities in startups is intended to help entrepreneurs and project teams turn their already defined priorities into a concrete execution plan. Through a simple structure, it makes it possible to organise team dedication, plan essential meetings and carry out basic tracking of the progress of each active initiative.

This tool complements the “Initiative Prioritisation” template. While the first helps decide which actions efforts should be focused on, work time planning enables the next step: how to execute them over time, with what level of dedication and with what degree of coordination. Used together, both tools make it easier to move from strategic decision-making to operational execution, helping verify whether the selected priorities truly fit the team’s available capacity.

Template sections explained in detail

1.    Active priorities

This sheet lists the initiatives that the team has decided to activate at this stage. It is not necessary to include all previously prioritised initiatives, but only those that will be realistically addressed in the short term. The goal is to limit the number of open fronts and ensure that each initiative has a clear owner and a specific purpose.

For each initiative, elements such as the name, a brief description, the area it belongs to, the priority level, the person responsible, the specific execution objective and the desired deadline are recorded.

This initial selection is key to maintaining focus and avoiding overloading the team with too many simultaneous priorities.

2.    Work plan

This sheet turns active priorities into an operational execution plan. Here, the dedication required for each initiative is specified, who is involved, when it starts, when it should be completed and which dependencies may affect its progress.

This sheet records data such as the main person responsible, the people involved, the total estimated hours, the planned weekly dedication, the start and end dates, the dependencies and the status of each initiative. 

Based on this information, the Excel file automatically calculates supporting indicators, such as the estimated duration in weeks, the associated weekly workload and deadline alerts when the target date is at risk of not being met. This sheet makes it possible to check whether the planned workload fits the team’s real capacity.

3.    Execution meetings

The Execution meetings sheet makes it possible to plan only those meetings that clearly add value to the progress of the initiatives. In entrepreneurial environments, coordination often grows in a disorganised way, generating meetings with no defined purpose or with limited impact on execution. For this reason, this section proposes recording only those sessions that serve to align, decide, review or unblock.

For each meeting, the associated initiative, the type of meeting, its objective, the required attendees, the estimated duration, the planned date, the frequency and the expected outcome are recorded. In this way, the tool helps the team maintain useful coordination, avoiding meeting overload and ensuring that each session has a clear purpose.

4.    Monitoring and results

The Monitoring and results sheet provides an overall view of plan execution. Its objective is to allow the team to periodically review whether initiatives are progressing, whether there are significant blockers and whether the committed weekly workload remains manageable.

This sheet combines two types of information. On the one hand, a monitoring table where, for each initiative, the execution status, estimated progress, next milestone, next key meeting, detected blockers and other relevant observations are recorded. 

On the other hand, a set of automatically calculated indicators that provide a quick reading of the overall status of the planning, such as the total number of active initiatives, those in progress, not started or blocked, the total and weekly hours committed, the estimated average duration, the number of planned meetings or the overall average progress across all initiatives.

In addition, the sheet includes a small informational block that helps interpret execution status and workload, facilitating a common language within the team when assessing how the plan is progressing.

How to interpret the results

The results of the tool should be interpreted jointly, combining information on status, progress, workload and blockers. The Monitoring and results sheet makes it possible to assess not only whether an initiative is important, but whether it is actually being executed under suitable conditions.

The execution status answers the question “how is this initiative progressing?”, distinguishing between initiatives that have not started, are in progress, completed or blocked. This reading makes it possible to quickly identify which initiatives are progressing as planned, which are still pending start-up and which require specific intervention to unblock them.

The workload, for its part, provides an operational perspective on the intensity of dedication required by each initiative. A low workload indicates limited or occasional dedication, a medium workload reflects a manageable dedication with periodic follow-up, and a high workload indicates that the initiative requires intense dedication relative to the team’s available capacity.

Additionally, the workload traffic light indicates the weekly hours committed by the team compared with the weekly available capacity, so it will be green if the committed hours do not exceed 80% of the available capacity, yellow if they are between 80% and 100%, and red if they exceed it.

This combination of status, workload and capacity enables more informed decision-making on whether the plan should be maintained, adjusted or efforts redistributed.

How is it used?

First, the active priorities are selected on the first sheet, taking as a starting point the initiatives previously worked on in the prioritisation tool. Each one is assigned a responsible person and a clear execution objective, ensuring that no active initiative is left without defined leadership.

Next, in the Work plan sheet, the dedication required for each initiative is estimated, indicating the total planned hours, weekly dedication, start and end dates, relevant dependencies and current status. The tool itself automatically calculates supporting information, such as the estimated duration in weeks, weekly workload and deadline alerts where applicable.

Then, in the Execution meetings sheet, only those meetings that are essential for progress are recorded, indicating their type, objective, participants, duration, frequency and expected outcome. This discipline helps ensure that team coordination remains aligned with the actual execution of the plan.

Finally, in the Monitoring and results sheet, the team periodically reviews the progress of the initiatives, the status of blockers and the general level of saturation. This review, recommended on a weekly or biweekly basis, makes it possible to adjust the planning when necessary, redistribute dedication or rethink the scope of an initiative if project conditions have changed.

Download the template and use it to organise the work time needed to execute your priorities, better coordinate your team and carry out structured progress tracking, thus supporting a more realistic, sustained execution aligned with the project’s real capacity.