Closing a project: won, lost, and why
Recording the outcome, and the one optional field that changes what your pipeline can tell you.
A project ends as won, lost, or on hold. Reaching the last pipeline stage is not the same as closing it: closing is a decision you record.
The close reason
When you close a project, Steerd asks:
Why did it close? Rate too low, timing, went to another freelancer...
It is optional, and the help text under it explains exactly why it is worth the ten seconds:
Only you see this, and it is what turns "I lose a lot" into "I lose on rate".
That is the whole argument. A lost project with no reason tells you nothing except that you lost. Thirty lost projects with reasons tell you whether your problem is pricing, timing, or the kind of work you are chasing, and those have completely different fixes.
Nobody outside your workspace ever sees it.
Won projects keep working
Winning does not end a project's usefulness. It carries on holding tracked time, trips and invoices, which is most of what a won project is for.
Parked
For work that is neither dead nor moving. It stays in the pipeline, and a parked stage is never flagged as stale, which is the whole point of parking something: you have decided it is waiting on purpose, so Steerd stops nagging about the silence.
That is also the trap. A parked project raises no warnings at all, so nothing will remind you it exists. Park deliberately, and look at your parked stages now and then.
After closing
Closed projects can be archived, which is what stops them counting toward your plan limit.