Hand off unfinished work with a short screen walkthrough

Separating decisions from open questions is the most valuable part. Without it, your colleague cannot tell a deliberate choice from an unfinished one.

• Where everything lives: folders, documents, branches, accounts, with the exact names.
• Current state: demonstrate what works now.
• What is broken or unfinished, shown on screen where possible.
• Decisions already made and why, so they are not reopened by accident.
• Open questions and who can answer them.
• The next concrete step you would have taken.

Links, paths and names are easier to open and copy from a companion note than from video frames. Write a short note with them before recording, then use the recording to show and explain what the note lists. The note also acts as your script, which keeps the video short.

Put the open questions in the note as a numbered list. Your colleague can reply to “question 2” instead of describing a moment in the video.

Several clips of a few minutes each, one per area of work, are easier to revisit than one long recording. Name each file after its topic and date.

On a Mac, Reel captures a display, so prepare all visible windows as potentially recorded. Close unrelated mail and chat. A Focus can reduce notifications but its exceptions can still allow interruptions; review the finished file. Opening the relevant folders in Finder and pointing to each file can be easier to follow than reading a long path aloud.

You are leaving for two weeks in the middle of migrating a newsletter template to a new email service.

1. Clip 1, location: show the shared folder with the old template, the new template and the test list.
2. Clip 2, state: send a test from the new service and show the header and footer rendering correctly.
3. Clip 3, broken: show the product grid collapsing into one column in one mail app and say you have not found the cause.
4. Clip 4, decisions: explain that you kept the old colour palette because the brand refresh is not approved yet.
5. Clip 5, open questions and next step: who approves the unsubscribe wording; next, test the grid with a fixed-width table.

Handoffs often happen inside admin consoles and code editors. Check that no passwords, API keys or customer records are visible, and do not share the files more widely than the work itself. If a credential must be passed on, use your team’s password manager or access process, not the video.

If the work involves a negotiation, a disputed decision or many dependencies, a recording will leave questions unanswered. Use the recording as preparation and still book a short conversation.