A Writing Log to Track Your Progress · 4:52pm Nov 9th, 2014
Because I'll do anything to avoid writing, and because the Equestria Daily summer fic contest gave me an excuse to play with spreadsheets, I decided to take Aquaman's advice and whip myself up a log sheet I can use to keep track of my writing habits.
As it turns out, it's pretty fun to use. Regardless if you write 30 words a day or 3,000, it's nice to look back on your progress when you're having a slow day and realize that getting words done is more than possible. For the go-getters among you, here's the link to a view-only template you can make a copy of using File > Make a copy...
I'll just go a bit into how I set it up below.
This spreadsheet has three different sheets: Legend, Log, and Stats. Let's go over the Log sheet first, which is where you'll be doing all of your data entry.
Fairly self-explanatory. Put in your date, the number of words you've written, and, if you'd like, how much time you spent writing those words. You can also keep track of which stories you worked on, and add comments. The Comments column is especially good for holding yourself accountable on the days you don't write.
The only thing you shouldn't edit is the "Speed" column, which automatically tabulates your WPM if you record your writing time. I try to keep my word count "pure" in that I don't allow planning or outlines to inflate my totals, though you're free to put in whatever you'd like.
Here's how I have mine filled out since Halloween:
Notice that some of those numbers are colored. I didn't do those by hand -- I just set up some conditional formatting rules to trigger upon certain thresholds. Take mine for word count, for instance:
These colors aren't completely arbitrary -- I explain them in the Legend sheet:
I set my Green thresholds to reflect my daily writing goals, so anything Blue or higher is gravy on top of accomplishment. If you wanna be like me, shoot for at least an hour of writing a day and 1000 words at 15 WPM. With NaNoWriMo going on, some of you may want to hit 1667 words a day, so adjust your conditional formatting rules accordingly.
If you feel like adding more colors or taking them away, just bear in mind that conditional formatting rules fire top-down, exiting upon the first successful match. Since there's no way to rearrange these rules in Google's current editor, make sure you get your order right first before tweaking your thresholds.
Finally, we come to the Stats sheet.
Do not modify any cells on this sheet, as they automatically populate based on data from your Log sheet. If you mess up, just grab another copy of the base template, or hack the formulas yourselves -- Google's formula documentation is very helpful. Columns D through H also have conditional formatting applied to them, so you can adjust those thresholds, too.
I'd definitely be interested in adding more stats to this sheet -- I'm thinking columns recording your % of days with goals met would be pretty nifty. The only downfall with those columns is that you'd need double entry to maintain them: one to update the conditional formatting rule, and another to update the cell formula. If you have ideas, or develop any new stat columns yourselves, I'd love to see them!
Does this seem like something you want to use? Head on over here and make your own from there!
Oh, and the third chapter of Button Cash is puttering along. Got another 500 words this morning right out of bed. Thanks to everyone who's keeping up with it.
Cheers,
Couch
Very nice! Totally grabbing a copy of this.
I should maybe do something like this. I do have a document that counts words in every story, but it hasn't been updated in quite a while.
Although, I still sometimes think about STAT301 from college and how I wasn't fond of it.
Yeah, I'm gonna yoink this!
2584040 Totes McGotes. This sheet's all about forming consistent writing habits more than anything else, so it helps having to come back to this daily and updating it.
It's even nicer that the only person who sees this spreadsheet is you, so you don't have to worry about pleasing someone else with results that might not be up to their expectations.
As for me, I never took statistics at all, but something tells me I didn't miss out on too much.
Very cool idea:)
Man, you put way more stuff in your spreadsheet than mine. Mine's basically three categories: "Did you write?", "How many words?", and "What prevented you from writing and why was it public intoxication again?"
2584048
Why am I following you!?
Epic or bust. It's the only way to raid. Er, write.
Ooh, nifty. **grabs a copy**
As a followup, if you take a look at the "Stats" page of my copy of the sheet, I've added a new row that breaks out statistics separately for a specific story. You can change the story name over on the right (column K), and it will tabulate all of the statistics only for lines in the "Data" sheet whose "Story Name" matches that value.
(My copy also added an "About" sheet, linking this blog post and crediting you.)