Tracking the progress of your goals is
key to achieving your
goals. And using a spreadsheet is a
really great way to do this - and it
doesn't need to be
complex. To
track a goal in Excel, the first
thing you need to do is, of course,
create your goal. Now this
goal needs to be able to be
quantified. That means that,
in some way, numbers need to
be used to gauge the progress - and
the eventual completion of that
goal. For example, if
your goal is to network more,
think about what that means. Maybe
you set a goal of meeting people for
coffee four times per month?
Whatever it is, it just needs to be
able to be quantified in some
way. Once you've decided what
your goal is, the next step is to
enter its details into your Excel
sheet. In this
example, we're going to use Excel to
help us track the progress
being made on reaching a goal of saving
two thousand dollars for
emergencies. We'll lay
out and enter the details of the
goal in a way that we can track its
progress throughout the year. We'll then
create a chart that we can use as a quick
visual of that progress.
So, for this example, I'm going to
enter what the goal
is - which is to save two thousand
dollars for emergencies. I'm going
to then create labels for
"Savings Goal," "Actual
Amount Saved," "Percent
Completed,"
then, right above those
labels, I'm going to list the name of
each month of the
year.
And then, at the very end of that, I'll create
another label for
"Totals."
Next, we'll create monthly
targets. These are smaller goals
that you'll meet each month and, by the end
of the year, will total your bigger
goal. These will also help you be
able to tell if your bigger goal is
realistic - so is this
too ambitious or not ambitious
enough. You will aim for what works
best for you. And, if you need to, you can
always make any adjustments throughout the
year. Under the "Totals" heading,
sum the totals for all the months - and
you can press Alt+= on your
keyboard for the auto SUM
shortcut. So then, you'll copy
this SUM formula to the cell below it
so that we can also sum the actual
amount that we
saved. For "Percent
Completed," we'll need to enter a
formula that divides the total
amount that we've saved
into the total savings
goal. And then making sure to
format this as a
percentage. Then,
at the end of each month, we would enter the total
amount that we saved that month. So,
here I'm just entering random numbers so we
have something to work with for our
chart. Creating a chart for
your goal is a really great way to get a
quick visual of the progress that
you're making towards that
goal. So, for this example, we
would need to chart the
actual amount saved
against the total savings goal.
So, to make the chart, using your
cursor, select the labels
for the fields that we're tracking. Which, again,
"Savings Goal"
and "Actual Amount Saved" - and make
sure to select them both
together - not by clicking on each
one individually. Then, holding
down the Control key on your
keyboard, do the same for the
totals - so select both your
totals - selecting them
together, not by clicking each one
individually. And then we'll insert a
chart. So we'll need to go to the
Insert tab, in the Chart
section. We'll click on
Recommended Charts, select the
chart and click OK. And
if you want to give your chart a little bit of
pizzazz, you can select one of the
"Chart Styles" that are available for you.
And that's it! You've now created a simple
goal tracker in Excel to help you keep up with
your goals. For more tutorials like this, click
on these links. Thanks!