A while ago, we published a new year resolution template. This was a hit with our readers with thousands of you downloading it. During last week, Peppe, one of our readers from Italy, took this template and made it even more awesome.
The original template had tasks and completion check marks. As you finish each task, you can see overall progress too.
Peppe added priorities to this. With his new version, progress is measured based on how much priority we assigned that particular task. Pretty neat eh?!?
Personal Todo list with Priorities – Demo
First take a look at Peppe’s todo list.
How is this made?
Using lots of Excel goodness of course. The basic components of this todo list are,
- Check boxes – to mark each activity as done (or not done)
- Data validation – to assign priority (1 to 5) to each activity
- Conditional Formatting – to highlight a row when the activity is marked as done
- Thermo-meter chart – to show the progress as you mark each activity done
- Formulas – to calculate % done based on how many activities are done & their priorities.
Since first 4 items are already explained on Chandoo.org, let me focus on the formula part.
Calculating % completion based on priorities:
To understand this problem, lets imagine, we have 5 tasks & priorities like below:
Step 1: Calculating weights
First step is to calculate how much weight each task should get. This is a simple job of inverting priority values (1/priority value). We will get this.
Step 2: Calculate weights to 100%
Next, we adjust the weights so that their total is 100%. To do this, we just divide a task’s weight by total of all task weights.
Step 3: Calculate % done only if a task is marked as done
Now, we just use TRUE / FALSE values generated by the check boxes to calculate % done. For this, we just need to multiply 100% weights with TRUE or FALSE values.
The total of this column gives us how much % of all tasks are done.
Note on weights for priorities
In this approach, we are assuming that doing one priority 1 task gives same output (%done) as doing two priority 2 tasks, three priority 3 tasks etc.
That means the weight enjoyed by priority 1 task is twice that of priority 2 task.
Some other possibilities are,
- Priority 1 is 1, 2 is 0.8, 3 is 0.6…
- A mapping table telling us how much each priority weighs
Read weighted averages in Excel to understand more.
Download this todo list template
Click here to download this template and chase that todo list in style. Examine the formulas in hidden column to understand this better.
Thank you Peppe
I find this template quite simple, yet powerful. It shows how much we can do with Excel by using a little creativity, simple features (conditional formatting, form controls etc.) and a some motivation.
Peppe, Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
If you enjoyed this todo list template, go ahead and say thanks to Peppe.
Also, use comments to share how you handle to dos & pending tasks using Excel. Share your tips & ideas with all of us.
Update
Over in the Chandoo.org Forums, Asshu has updated this witha VB Interface
Have a look and use if from: http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/to-do-list-vb-interface.28973/
More todo lists: Simple todo list in Excel, To do lists & Project Management
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?