In this hands-on tutorial learn how to create a simple, elegant and functional to-do list to track your projects and tasks.
Download FREE To-Do List Excel Template
Don’t want to make your formulas and formatting? You can download my ready-to-use To-Do List file and change the data as per your project.
Step 1: Set up your To-do data tables
We need two tables of data to begin with.
Table1: this is our to-do activity data table. It should have activity, optional due date and status columns at the minimum.
Table 2: This table lists all the possible status options. You can load them with below values (or come up with your own statuses).
Step 2: Link Status options to the todo Table
Once we link the “status” and “todo” tables, we can easily update the todo status, as demoed below:
To do this (excuse the pun), 
- Select the “todo status” column in our second table
- Use “Formula” ribbon > Define Name button (ALT M M), and create a name for this column. I named mine status_options
- Go back to the “Todo” table and select the status column.
- Go to Data ribbon > Data Validation and set up a List validation with source as status_options
Now our status column is linked with the options we have defined.
Step 3: Create the CANVAS for visual To-Do List
Let’s setup the canvas for our todo list. Add a blank sheet and,
- Make three columns wide enough to show the todo activities
- Add a title and format it nicely. I used the “shapes” in insert ribbon for this.
- Add a footer and do the same.
- Add background colors and tidy up as needed.
Here is a high-speed show-reel of my formatting setup.
Step 4: Formula Time
Time for some number crunching. We need to use two formulas to get the ongoing activity list and structure it for our output page.
Add another sheet for the calculations and set up below two formulas.
The formulas
Our first formula (set up in cell B3 in the calculation worksheet) fetches all the ongoing activities and sorts the data using FILTER & SORT functions.
=SORT(FILTER(todo[[Activity]:[Due-date?]],(todo[Status]="Ongoing")+(todo[Status]="")),2,1)
The second formula rearranges this data in to a single column using the TOCOL() function.
=TOCOLO(B3#)
LAST STEP: Bring everything together to make the To-Do List
Go the canvas todo list we created in step 3 and get first 12 rows of our TOCOL() output for first column, next 12 rows for the middle column and the next 12 rows for the last column.
Tidy up and format as needed.
Tadaaaa, our To-Do List is ready!
Video Tutorial - How to make a To-Do List in Excel?
If you need more help with these instructions, check out the video tutorial I made below or on my YouTube Channel.
Download FREE To-Do List Excel Template
Don’t want to make your formulas and formatting? You can download my ready-to-use To-Do List file and change the data as per your project.
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One Response to “SQL vs. Power Query – The Ultimate Comparison”
Enjoyed your SQL / Power Query podcast (A LOT). I've used SQL a little longer than Chandoo. Power Query not so much.
Today I still use SQL & VBA for my "go to" applications. While I don't pull billions of rows, I do pull millions. I agree with Chandoo about Power Query (PQ) lack of performance. I've tried to benchmark PQ to SQL and I find that a well written SQL will work much faster. Like mentioned in the podcast, my similar conclusion is that SQL is doing the filtering on the server while PQ is pulling data into the local computer and then filtering the data. I've heard about PQ query folding but I still prefer SQL.
My typical excel application will use SQL to pull data from an Enterprise DB. I load data into Structured Tables and/or Excel Power Pivot (especially if there's lot of data).
I like to have a Control Worksheet to enter parameters, display error messages and have user buttons to execute VBA. I use VBA to build/edit parameters used in the SQL. Sometimes I use parameter-based SQL. Sometimes I create a custom SQL String in a hidden worksheet that I then pull into VBA code (these may build a string of comma separated values that's used with a SQL include). Another SQL trick I like to do is tag my data with a YY-MM, YY-QTR, or YY-Week field constructed form a Transaction Date.
In an application, I like to create a dashboard(s) that may contain hyperlinks that allow the end-user to drill into data. Sometimes the hyperlink will point to worksheet and sometimes to a supporting workbook. In some cases, I use a double click VBA Macro that will pull additional data and direct the user to a supplemental worksheet or pivot table.
In recent years I like Dynamic Formulas & Lambda Functions. I find this preferable to pivot tales and slicers. I like to use a Lambda in conjunction with a cube formula to pull data from a power pivot data model. I.E. a Lambda using a cube formula to aggregate Accounting Data by a general ledger account and financial period. Rather than present info in a power pivot table, you can use this combination to easily build financial reports in a format that's familiar to Accounting Professionals.
One thing that PQ does very well is consolidating data from separate files. In the old days this was always a pain.
I've found that using SQL can be very trying (even for someone with experience). It's largely an iterative process. Start simple then use Xlookup (old days Match/Index). Once you get the relationships correct you can then use SQL joins to construct a well behaved SQL statement.
Most professional enterprise systems offer a schema that's very valuable for constructing SQL statements. For any given enterprise system there's often a community of users that will share SQL. I.E. MS Great Plains was a great source (but I haven't used them in years).
Hope this long reply has value - keep up the good work.