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Productivity Tool
January 4th, 2014 05:26 pmWe're only 4 days into the New Year, so it may be a bit premature, but I'm THRILLED with my new creative productivity tool.
I started with an author's writing tracker spreadsheet shared on tumblr, which tracked time written per day, wordcount, and writing pace, and had a little section to show you the average per month. The cool thing about it was that it used conditional formatting to color-code your word count based on your goals -- as this (pro) author had set it up, if he wrote 2000 words in a day, the cell turned a happy green; if it was between 1000 and 2000, it turned yellow, and if it was below 1000, it was RED.
Actually, the whole sheet was a stripe of red, because his spreadsheet showed zero for days that hadn't happened yet. I wanted mine to be more motivational (and I have a slight spreadsheet fetish, and large desire to do things the slickest way possible) so I fixed that. :P I also got the bright idea of tracking multiple arty/creative goals on one sheet. I have too damn much going on in my life to commit to x number of words written per day, or x minutes of music practice, or x minutes of drawing. Every time I try, it seems I've set myself up for failure. But I CAN aim for "Achieve at least one of these x-es every day." That gets more of the whole picture, and is far more motivating!
The creativity log spreadsheet includes
I want to be able to make it do more, but all of my ideas would require a more robust conditional formatting feature than a google spreadsheet offers -- or excel offers without actual coding, for that matter (I dream of a spreadsheet where my conditional formatting can be a formula that references other cells, rather than being determined by the data or formula in the formatted cell. I have strange dreams).
I started with an author's writing tracker spreadsheet shared on tumblr, which tracked time written per day, wordcount, and writing pace, and had a little section to show you the average per month. The cool thing about it was that it used conditional formatting to color-code your word count based on your goals -- as this (pro) author had set it up, if he wrote 2000 words in a day, the cell turned a happy green; if it was between 1000 and 2000, it turned yellow, and if it was below 1000, it was RED.
Actually, the whole sheet was a stripe of red, because his spreadsheet showed zero for days that hadn't happened yet. I wanted mine to be more motivational (and I have a slight spreadsheet fetish, and large desire to do things the slickest way possible) so I fixed that. :P I also got the bright idea of tracking multiple arty/creative goals on one sheet. I have too damn much going on in my life to commit to x number of words written per day, or x minutes of music practice, or x minutes of drawing. Every time I try, it seems I've set myself up for failure. But I CAN aim for "Achieve at least one of these x-es every day." That gets more of the whole picture, and is far more motivating!
The creativity log spreadsheet includes
- Columns for wordcount (calculated) and writing and art time (entered) which change color according to goals. Currently, it's set such that 250 words is acceptable, and 750 is good; 15 minutes of writing or art is acceptable; 45 minutes is good.
- The automatically calculated wordcount column doesn't show a 'zero' unless the day has already started. (The way it was before, it reminded me of the teacher I had who gave us all progress reports with failing grades because she'd entered the scores of work we hadn't been assigned yet).
- Writing time is calculated from start and end times, as in the original. Music and Art time isn't. I should probably make it all one way or the other -- I can see the benefit of the calculated time for many people (and it allows the 'automatic zero' function above), but I often work on art and writing in a haphazard bit-here bit-there manner, which makes it difficult.
- includes words per hour calculation, which doesn't necessarily have much utility for me, given my shoddy timekeeping.
I want to be able to make it do more, but all of my ideas would require a more robust conditional formatting feature than a google spreadsheet offers -- or excel offers without actual coding, for that matter (I dream of a spreadsheet where my conditional formatting can be a formula that references other cells, rather than being determined by the data or formula in the formatted cell. I have strange dreams).
