// Management · RimWorld Mod

Work Monitor

Name: Work Monitor
Author: deadclod

by deadclod

1.6

Steam ↗

1 / 6

Work Monitor See what your colony is actually doing — and what is still waiting on the map.

Work Monitor

See what your colony is actually doing — and what is still waiting on the map. Work Monitor is a read-only analytics layer for Work Tab. It tracks colonist work activity and map backlog by work type (Cooking, Construction, Mining, and so on), with drill-down charts, passion interest, and CSV export. It does not change priorities, jobs, or gameplay. Pure observation. No micromanagement from this mod.

How it helps you optimize

You might notice your constructors are spending most of their time "delivering materials to frames" instead of actually building walls! This instantly flags that you need to optimize your layout, fix your stockpiles, or hire a dedicated hauler instead of changing work priorities. Work Monitor is built for decisions, not just numbers. Use it to spot where your colony’s work is stuck, misallocated, or under-used:

Find neglected work types — status colors show what is active, stale, or idle. Red or yellow rows with rising map backlog mean colonists are not keeping up; green with low backlog means that lane is healthy.
Match people to the right jobs — see capable vs enabled vs actually worked counts, plus passion interest on skill-relevant work givers. Shift priorities on the Work tab when the wrong pawns are doing the work — or nobody is.
Balance workload across colonists — colonist detail and time-share % show who is carrying a work type and who barely contributed in the selected range. Useful after recruitment, injuries, or schedule changes.
Separate travel waste from real work — — walk vs work time highlights jobs where pawns spend more time moving than doing. Often a layout, zoning, or stockpile issue rather than a priority issue.
Compare output to backlog — Work Processed (what colonists finished) next to ExistJob / ExistWork (what is still waiting) shows whether you are clearing the queue or falling behind. “New today” in parentheses flags work piling up faster than you are addressing it.
Drill into the real bottleneck — work type → work giver → colonist navigation tells you whether the problem is one job type (e.g. haul vs construct deliver), one pawn, or map-only backlog with no colonist activity (Unassigned backlog).
Check if a priority change worked — switch the time range (6 h → 7 d → 14 d) or use charts to see whether jobs, work units, or backlog trend the way you expected after tweaking the Work tab.
Jump straight to fixes — Highlight in Work Tab takes you from a work type row to the matching column so you can adjust priorities without hunting through the grid.

Tip: treat colonist “work done” and map “work remaining” as two different lenses — together they show whether the colony is productive, overloaded, or mis-prioritized.

How to open

History → Work tab — full monitor embedded in the history screen
Work tab → Monitor button — standalone window (same UI)
Colonist inf — top right icon

Requirements

Required

Harmony
Work Tab (Fluffy)

Supported: RimWorld 1.6

Good to know

Read-only — no priority changes, no job forcing, no balance tweaks
Map stats cover the current map only (no multi-map rollup)
Haul, refuel, and similar tasks often show open tasks but 0 work left — that is expected
Work units are most reliable on bills and jobs with readable work-left; other jobs still record jobs and time
Status color reflects colonist activity, not map backlog — a work type can be green while tasks pile up, or red while the map is busy

Testing & limitations

Estimated work units — when work-left cannot be read, Work Monitor credits estimated work from active time × pawn speed. That scale may not match measured work-left elsewhere in the UI or in exports.
Colonist work ≠ map work — Work Processed (colonist) and ExistWork (map) use different logic: job events and work-left deltas vs periodic map scans and provider-specific estimates. They answer different questions (“what did pawns complete?” vs “what is still on the map?”) and will not line up row-for-row.
Vanilla 1.6 focus — developed and tested against base RimWorld 1.6 without systematic coverage of DLC content (Royalty, Ideology, Biotech, Anomaly, Odyssey, etc.). DLC-specific work may be incomplete or untested.
Multi-base — not tested on saves with multiple active colony maps.