The two kinds of waiting: on people and on time
"Waiting" sounds like one state. In practice there are two very different kinds, and treating them the same is a quiet source of missed follow-ups.
Waiting on a person
The ball is in someone else's court. A client owes you approval, a colleague owes you numbers, a supplier owes you a delivery date. Nothing happens until they act.
This kind of waiting needs chasing. The longer it sits, the more likely it is to have been forgotten on their side. It belongs in a place where its age is visible, so you know when to follow up. See the waiting-on-someone problem.
Waiting on time
Nobody owes you anything. The work simply should not start yet: renew the domain next month, review the contract in March, check the campaign results after two weeks.
This kind of waiting needs a date, not a chase. Chasing it is pointless; forgetting it is costly. It belongs somewhere that brings it back at the right moment.
Why mixing them causes trouble
When both kinds sit in one "waiting" list:
- Time-based items clutter the list you are supposed to chase from, so you stop reading it.
- People-based items look like "later" items, so they never get chased.
The result is a list that feels busy and gets ignored.
How to separate them on a board
On a 2D board, the columns already separate them:
- Other is for waiting on a named person. In Axtio, actions here show their age after four days and turn red after seven, so you know what to chase.
- Next is for waiting on time or sequence. Add a date in the action's title ("Review contract, 1 March") and pull it into Mine when the date arrives.
That one distinction makes both lists useful again.
A quick test
For any waiting item, ask: "Could someone do something about this today?" If yes, it is waiting on a person, and it belongs in Other with their name. If no, it is waiting on time, and it belongs in Next with a date. For the follow-up rhythm itself, see follow-up cadence, and for why waiting is so draining, why waiting feels worse.