Tracking app or software for multiple projects?

[FarmerBrown]

My Google searches aren't bringing me what I want (my fault...), so I'm hoping someone knows what I'm talking about and maybe has experience with something like it!

I'm looking for something (app, software, website etc.) that can track my multiple writing projects and keep a "dashboard" type thing. I'd like to input a "due date" for each project and be able to see my progress by inputting a word count goal. I'm fine with manually entering my updated word count each time. Any ideas? I'm open for suggestions about using software I already have (Word, Excel, Scrivener) to accomplish this, but I can't find a way to export my project data for multiple projects in Scrivener, for example. Seeing my multiple projects at once is important to me. I have three "active" projects and three "back burner" projects.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Penpilot]

Actually, this sounds simple enough to do in excel, a simple spreadsheet with a column for the title, due date, current word count, goal and what ever else you need. You can also use one file that keeps multiple spreadsheets, one for say novels, another for short stories, etc.

 

[2WayParadox]

You can put multiple manuscripts into one scrivener file. So say you have a related series of books, having them in one file could be benificial. If they're not related, I would go with Penpilot's excel solution.

Another possiblity is any calendar type program. I think google has a free one.

 

[Butterfly]

With excel you can also insert a spreadsheet. If you've ever Nano you would have seen one with the daily goal rising as a line, and your daily achievement as a bar. It helps to push you that little bit more in achieving your daily goals.

Might be of benefit for you to learn to use hyperlinks. Then you can set up a file with links that will take you straight to the relevant spreadsheet. Hyperlinks also work in word and can help you navigate around a big file quickly. I set them up to work from the contents page.

 

[FarmerBrown]

I did get something in Excel working, which will do for now. After wrestling with the DATEVALUE function for longer than I liked I'm calling it quits for today, but I'm hoping there's a graph that will give me the visuals I want (% complete).

I did end up finding plenty of dashboards and trackers for a single novel, but nothing where I could display multiple titles. On the other hand, I found project tracking software for multiple projects being worked on by multiple people, which was way too much stuff. Where's the happy medium?!?

IDEALLY, I'd love to have a widget on my Windows 7 desktop that displayed my progress...I can dream, right?? I use Google calendar for work so I'm quite familiar with it and while it's great for scheduling daily or weekly tasks, as well as future to-do items, I wish there was a way to be more interactive. I finally figured out how to do a year view though!

Thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[2WayParadox]

How do you track your progress exactly? Word count? Amount of scenes written?

Something you might not know (apologies if you do): date in excel is saved as the number of seconds from January 1st 1900 until the moment of the calculation (I think it's that date, but it doesn't matter). It's an important thing to know in order to udnerstand how the date functions work.

 

[FarmerBrown]

How do you track your progress exactly? Word count? Amount of scenes written?

For me, word count. I know *kind of* how long each story should take to tell and make that my goal, and then if I have to tweak a few K (or a few 10K in the case of my fantasy....) it'll be fine. So the percentage function worked well for that.

I'm not sure what your second point is about, but I used the datevalue function (=DATEVALUE("1-July-2015")-TODAY()& " days until due") to do my countdown. I think it worked, since I ended up with "127 days until due", but I'm an excel novice ;-)

 

[RonCNieto]

I use an android app capable to store all my projects, along with a deadline date. Each project has a progress bar that may feature the number of words written any given day versus the total of daily words you need to meet your deadline (you can recalculate the daily goal whenever you want), or the number of words written for the project versus the total words needed for the project.

The problem? The app is in Spanish and I haven't been able to talk the developped into translating it yet That said, it's very intuitive so you can problably handle it regardless. Name: Writeometer.

That's my personal favorite, but there are other apps, designed for NanoWrimo, that serve a similar purpose. A few that I've tried: NaNoProgress, GoalTracker, Writer's Progress Bar (bronze version is free) and Write Track (must be about 99 cents). Check them out and see if that's what you're looking for?

Hope it helped!

 

[FarmerBrown]

Thanks, RonCNieto! I happen to read/speak Spanish. However, when I searched the Google Play (Android) store for Writeometer I found an app with that name, in English, and I think it will work well. I'll check out the others you listed, too.

 

[RonCNieto]

Great, glad you found it! I just checked and it does appear in English, so that must be it (by Guavabot or something like that, true?).

For some reason it forced me to install it in Spanish (probably the bleeep* thing detected where I live and made choices on my behalf). I think that one's the best, but feel free to check the others and share your thoughts

 

[FarmerBrown]

Great, glad you found it! I just checked and it does appear in English, so that must be it (by Guavabot or something like that, true?).

Yes, and apparently you can buy things with guavas?? Interesting! Thanks for the tip ;-) this is more of what I was looking for.

 

[cupiscent]

A little late to this party, but I use myWriteClub to track my writing goals (in combination with a to-do app for cross-life task tracking).