When you are making a chart next time, spend just 5 minutes (or even less) on the formatting and give more time (may be 20 minutes) to think about the story.
Often we spend a lot of time fine tuning our chart formatting that we neglect the story. We fail to understand what the bars and lines mean. Most of the charts (even the real ugly ones) can be cleaned up and made presentable in a few minutes. Unless you are giving a keynote presentation about the next iPhone, I don’t think spending more time fine tuning formats is necessary. But even the simplest charts can often take hours of story-telling.
Thanks to newer and better versions of charting software, making pretty charts is an easy job. But telling compelling stories, alas, no software can match you.
Don’t confuse formatting with overall chart making process. You still need to spend sometime figuring out the right chart. That is why Jon and I have started the new chart doctor, where we take badly made charts and convert them to better charts so that it is easy to tell the story.
More naughty but very important charting lessons:
PS: The name chart doctor will be changed to something more sexier and wittier, thanks to the issue we faced. Know more from here, here, here and here.
11 Responses to “FREE Calendar & Planner Excel Template for 2025”
Hi,
I downloaded this 2025 Calendar template. I checked the custom tab. Is it possible to change the weekend Fri & Sat.
Thanks
It is. Just use the option for fri & sat weekend (should be 7).
Activities of some dates are not getting displayed on "Any month" and "printable calendar" sheets.
e.g. Activity of 24 Apr 25.
Can you check again? The date in "planner" sheet should be a proper date. When I tested with 24-apr-2025, it works.
Love this calendar... I have highlight planner dates enabled but all dates are blue, is it possible to customize the color based on the type assigned to each date?
What would be the right way to add more Holidays in the Customizations?
Inserting rows in the Holiday List causes the blank cells in the calendar to turn Blue.
This is amazing!!! The best I've seen so far!! Is it possible to update it to consider a column for the final date? That way, if an event lasts more than one day, it repeats in the calendar
How do we change/insert the customization "Icon Options" ?
You can adjust these from the settings tab.
Is there anyway this can turn into an academic calendar (ie. start month is July and runs all the way through June of next year)?
Is there a way to make it something that is more than a day without having to add it to every day of that week.