Tasks of Mourning Worksheet: An Active, Hopeful Framework for the Grieving Process

About this tool

Psychologist William Worden offered an alternative to the idea of grief as stages you passively pass through. In his model, mourning involves four tasks: things the grieving person actively works on over time. The shift matters. Tasks give a sense of agency, a feeling that there is something you can do, without imposing a rigid order or schedule on a deeply personal process.

The four tasks are: to accept the reality of the loss; to process the pain of grief; to adjust to a world without the person, inwardly and outwardly; and to find an enduring connection with them while moving forward in life. That last task was revised by Worden over the years and reflects the same truth as continuing bonds: we do not let go of those we love, we find a new place to keep them as we live on.

Like the stages, these tasks are not linear. You will not finish one and tidily begin the next. You may work on several at once, circle back to a task you thought was behind you, or find a particular task resurfacing around an anniversary years later. That is not regression. It is simply how grief moves, in waves rather than a straight line.

There is also no deadline. Worden's tasks describe a direction of travel, not a timeline. Use this worksheet whenever a task feels alive for you, and set it aside when you need to step back. Grief, in his model and in life, asks for gentleness with yourself above all.

There is nothing to score here. What is worth noticing instead is which task feels hardest to sit with right now, because that is often the one worth returning to first. If Task 1 or Task 2 feels blank or impossible to answer, that is common early on, and it is fine to start with Task 3 or Task 4 instead and come back later. Revisit the whole worksheet over time. Your answers will likely change, and that change is itself a sign of the work moving forward.

Working through these tasks on your own is not a requirement, and for many people it works better alongside someone else, a support group, a friend who also knew the person, or a grief-informed therapist. If a task feels stuck for a long stretch, if daily life keeps feeling unmanageable, or if grief brings thoughts of not wanting to go on, reach out for more support. Psychology.com's therapist directory lets you search by specialty at no cost, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by phone or text at any hour.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed for fidelity to Worden's task model and for compassionate, non-linear framing.

References

1. Worden JW. Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner. 5th ed. Springer; 2018.
2. Klass D, Silverman PR, Nickman SL, eds. Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Taylor & Francis; 1996.
3. Stroebe M, Schut H. The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description. Death Stud. 1999;23(3):197-224.

Tasks of Mourning Worksheet FAQ