One of the biggest mistakes people make when getting started with Jira is jumping straight into building boards, creating custom fields, and configuring workflows before they’ve thought through what they’re actually trying to organize.

Jira is incredibly flexible, which is one of its greatest strengths. However, that flexibility also means there isn’t a single “correct” way to build a project. The best workflow depends entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Before creating my Job Search Tracker, I spent some time planning how I wanted everything to work. That planning made the rest of the setup much easier because I already knew what information I wanted to capture, how I wanted to organize it, and what I wanted to see at a glance.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the same planning process so you can design a workflow that fits your own needs before you begin customizing Jira.

Download the free Workflow Planning Workbook to plan your workflow as you follow this guide. It includes both an editable Word version and a printable PDF, along with the complete Job Search Tracker example used throughout this tutorial series.

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What You’ll Learn

• Why planning your workflow first saves time later
• Identify what you’re actually tracking
• Decide what belongs in stories, tasks, and comments
• Plan your workflow stages
• Identify useful custom fields
• Decide what should become reusable templates
• Build a roadmap for customizing your Jira project

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Common Uses

This planning process works for much more than a job search. The same ideas can be applied when building workflows for:

• Content creation
• Marketing campaigns
• Client projects
• Product development
• Small business operations
• Event planning
• Home projects
• Personal productivity
• Team collaboration

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Requirements / Compatibility

No Jira experience is required.

In fact, this planning process is most valuable before you begin customizing your Jira project.

A notebook, document, spreadsheet, or even a sheet of paper is enough to work through these ideas before opening Jira. Personally, I like to use OneNote to organize all my thoughts, and there are several similar notes app that work great as well. Just use what works best for you.

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Practice & Resources

Planning your workflow before building it in Jira can save time and make your project much easier to maintain. To help you organize your ideas, I’ve created two companion resources for this guide:

• Workflow Planning Workbook (Editable Word Document) – A fillable planning workbook you can customize to design your own workflow before creating it in Jira.
• Workflow Planning Workbook (Printable PDF) – A printer-friendly version if you prefer to sketch ideas by hand before building your project.

The workbook includes planning sections for:

• Defining what each work item represents
• Designing your workflow stages
• Planning your story template
• Identifying useful custom fields
• Deciding what belongs in notes versus structured fields
• Planning reusable tasks
• Brainstorming future improvements

You can follow my Job Search Tracker example exactly as it’s presented, use it as a starting point, or modify every section to build a workflow that fits your own projects.

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Understanding How Jira Works

Before building anything, it helps to think about Jira as a way of organizing information rather than simply managing tasks.

Every Jira project answers a few basic questions:

• What am I tracking?
• What information do I want to capture?
• What steps does this work naturally move through?
• What information do I want to see immediately?
• What information only matters when I open the item?

Once you can answer those questions, most of the Jira setup becomes much easier because every customization has a purpose.

Rather than adding fields and statuses simply because Jira allows them, you’re designing a system that supports the way you actually work.

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Planning Your Workflow

Step 1: Decide What One Work Item Represents

Every Jira project revolves around a single type of work.

For this project, I decided: One Story = One Job Opportunity

That means every story contains everything related to one job, including notes, contacts, documents, interviews, and follow-up activities.

If you’re building a different type of project, your work item might represent something entirely different, such as:

• One client
• One blog post
• One software feature
• One marketing campaign
• One event

The important thing is choosing one consistent thing that each work item represents.

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Step 2: Decide What You Want to See at a Glance

Ask yourself:

“When I open my Jira board, what information do I immediately want to know?”

For my job search, I wanted to quickly answer questions like:

• Which jobs am I interested in?
• Which applications are active?
• Which companies owe me a response?
• Which opportunities need follow-up?

Those answers helped shape my workflow columns.

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Step 3: Plan Your Workflow Stages

Before creating any statuses, sketch the natural flow of your work.

Mine became:

Interested

↓

Preparing

↓

Applied

↓

Interviewing

↓

Waiting

↓

Follow Up

↓

Closed

Don’t worry about making this perfect. Your workflow will almost certainly evolve as you begin using it.

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Step 4: Decide What Information Should Be Consistent

Some information should be captured for every work item.

For my job search, examples included:

• Company
• Job title
• Salary range
• Employment type
• Work location
• Application source

These became candidates for custom fields because I wanted to record them consistently and eventually filter or report on them.

Additionally, consider the types of custom fields that can be added and which can be used to filter, when making this decision.

You can currently add the following custom field types to your space:

• Date picker
• Date time picker
• Number field
• Select field (single select)
• Select field (multi-select)
• Text field (single line)
• Text fields (multi-line)
• URL field
• Labels
• Checkbox
• User picker (single and multi-user)

You can filter by the following types of custom fields in your space:

• Single select
• Checkbox
• Multi-select
• User picker (company-managed spaces only)
• People field (team-managed spaces only)
• Custom date
• Formula

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Step 5: Decide What Belongs in Notes

Not everything needs its own field.

Free-form information is often easier to keep in the story description.

Examples include:

• Why I’m interested
• Company culture
• Benefits
• Connections
• General observations
• Job description

This information is important, but doesn’t usually need to be searched or reported on.

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Step 6: Decide What Happens Every Time

Think about the actions you repeat for nearly every work item.

For my job search, that included:

• Research the company
• Prepare my application
• Submit the application

Those became the foundation for my reusable task template.

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Step 7: Decide What Only Happens Sometimes

Not every opportunity follows the same path.

Examples include:

• Recruiter interviews
• Hiring manager interviews
• Assessments
• Portfolio reviews
• Presentations
• Reference checks

Rather than including these every time, I planned to create them only when needed.

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Step 8: Build First, Refine Later

One of the biggest advantages of Jira is that it evolves with you.

Don’t worry about designing the perfect system on day one.

Instead:

• Build something simple.
• Use it.
• Notice what’s working.
• Improve it over time.

That’s exactly how this Job Search Tracker was created, and I’ll continue refining it as I use it throughout my own job search.

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Next Step

If you’re following my How to Build a Job Search Tracker in Jira guide, here’s the next step:

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