Measure The Progress of ANYTHING With This Free Tracker

What gets measured gets managed. I find the best way to track metrics is to have one easy-to-update sheet.

This Google Sheet has a daily tracker.

You can get a free copy (no email signup) from this link.

Record a total or action completed for each day.

You create a new sheet for each month. This saves you having to scroll through rows and rows to get to the most recent data.

Here’s how it works

First, make a copy of the Google Sheet. (You only need to do this once).

Then, when you’re ready to create a new tab (a worksheet) for a month, make a copy of the Template tab and click on Duplicate.

Duplicate the Template tab to create a new worksheet for each month.

Enter the Year the tracker is for, and select the month from the Dropdown:

Select the month from the list of months in the dropdown. The correct number of days for that year/month should be listed.

In the example above, I’ve selected Feb for the year 2024. As this is a leap year, February has 29 days. The Google Sheet automatically figures this out and lists an entry for each day.

You can add totals using the SUM or COUNT formulas. You’ll see examples for a metric count (SUM) and the number of checkboxes that are checked (using the COUNTIF formula).

FAQ:

I’m scared I’m going to break your Google Sheet.

Be at peace. I’ve given you a read only copy, which means you have to make a copy which you can then play with, or even destroy. You won’t break anything at my end.

Where Do I get the Google Sheet again?

You’re going to click on the following link, and then select File and Make a copy.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aLJwSrtrn_EPiFKYit47uEhusNW61Vxs99i1tUGMOWI/edit?usp=sharing

Can I add extra metrics?

Sure. I could have created a spreadsheet with all 12 months, but you may find after a month or so that there’s some new metric you want to start tracking. Add that to the template and then you can create a new worksheet for the following month.

You may also find that there are some metrics you no longer want to track.

Can this count dollar amounts, or other currencies?

Sure. You’d need to change the format of the metric column you want to track. Then select Format and Number to select a format you’d like to use, such as Currency.

You can change the format of a column using the Format menu option. Then select Number and one of the number or currency formats.

What do I do with the Master Data tab?

Nothing. You can ignore it, but don’t delete it.

The Master Data tab currently has a list of months, and a formula to calculate the month number (1 for January, 8 for August), which is used in the calculation based on the number of days in a month.

Could I add a Monthly Total tab?

Yes, you can. You may want to consider keeping Totals on the same row for each month…even if the month doesn’t have 31 days. This will make it easier for you to insert something like this in your monthly total tab:

=Feb!B36

Can you explain the geeky details of the formula?

You really have a lot of time on your hands, don’t you.

(If you’re not interested in this, give this article a clap and scroll on).

First, here’s the formula:

=SEQUENCE(DAY(EOMONTH(YEAR($B$1&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1")&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1",0)),1,YEAR($B$1&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1")&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1",1)

Now, here’s the logic:

Cell B1 (fixed, using $B$1), contains the four-digit year entered by the person using the Google Sheet.

And the Month (in cell B2) uses a data validation, so that the list of months appears in a dropdown. This data validation comes from the Master Data sheet.

So, we need to work out:

• how many days in a month

And then we can use the SEQUENCE function.

So, for example, if we wanted to see a sequence of a month which has 29 days (February 2024), we’d run:
=SEQUENCE(29,1)

Which means: “list 29 rows.”

But we want to calculate the number of days in a month, so we know how many rows to insert.

The EOMONTH function tells us the last day of the month.

This converts the month from a three-letter abbreviation (“May”) to a number (5):
MONTH($B$2&1)

But it’s not enough to know the month, as the number of days in the month can change (looking at you, February!)

So we need to know the year first, and then can append the month number followed by the day of the month (let’s set it to 1).

To get the year for February (month #2) of the year 2024, we would run:

YEAR(“2024/2/1”)

Or create this using the “&”:

YEAR($B$1&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/”1")

This now tells us the Year, Month and Day (the first of that month).

From there, we can calculate what the last day of the month is, using the EOMONTH function:

EOMONTH(YEAR($B$1&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1")

And by using the DAY function, we have the day number, or the number of days in the month.

This will tell us how many days are in the month— and therefore how many rows to repeat for the SEQUENCE function:

DAY(EOMONTH(YEAR($B$1&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1")&”/”&MONTH($B$2&1)&”/1",0))