How to use Google Sheets to keep every part of your life organized

You don't need shiny new apps and websites if you want to organize your life. All you need is the spreadsheet you trust. With Google Sheet's sharing capabilities and some robust, easy-to-use templates, you can stay on top of your budget, schedule, to-do list, and more.

Why Google Sheets?

While you can easily use Microsoft Excel to manage your life, there are several good reasons to use Google Sheets.

You can share and collaborate: By its very nature, Google Drive is all about sharing. Whether you're using Google Sheets for personal or work purposes, you can easily share everything with your family or colleagues.

Receive simultaneous updates :Everything happens in real time. You can see the changes as they are made..

Avoid duplicates :While you can use cloud sharing to work on a master document, using Google Sheets helps you avoid the confusing mess of duplicate copies.

You can use free templates: Google Sheets has a gallery of templates, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel or figure out spreadsheet formulas if that's not your thing. If you strive for simplicity, stick with Google's templates.

To open the templates, go to Google Drive> Click on the blue New button> Hover over the arrow next to Google Sheets> Click From a template .

For more options, you can browse the Vertex Gallery online and install the Vertex Template Gallery Chrome Plugin to easily copy templates to your Google Drive.

You can generate reports: This is also a feature you'll get with Excel, but it's worth noting nonetheless. If you're a visual person or just want to get an overview of what you're doing, you can use Google Sheets data to generate reports, charts, and more.

You save time with automation: As with Excel, if you have repetitive elements that constantly appear in your spreadsheets, you can create dropdown menus for your cells. You can use conditional formatting to automatically change the appearance of cells based on their content. And of course you can use formulas to generate data automatically.

Everything in its right place: Radiohead references aside, you can use Google Sheets to keep everything in one place, allowing you to have fewer apps to check and save yourself a lot of time in the process.

There are many reasons why you might choose Google Sheets over Excel Excel vs Google Sheets:Which is better for you? Excel vs. Google Sheets:Which is better for you? Do you really need Excel? Both desktop and online solutions have their advantages. If you're having trouble choosing between Excel and Google Sheets to manage your spreadsheets, let us help you decide. Read More But if you find Excel to be the better option, you can still use the following ideas in your quest for spreadsheet perfection.

And of course, all of this advice comes with the understanding that you are placing personal information in the cloud and where you can also grant third parties access to your personal data.

Get your expenses under control with Google Sheets

Spreadsheets were made for the budgets. Whether you're tracking monthly or yearly expenses, Google Sheets has you covered.

With a few spreadsheet formulas, you can automatically calculate how much you're earning, how much you're spending, and understand where your money is going.

If you're looking for something simple and easy to use, stick to Google's templates:they provide a personal monthly and yearly budget spreadsheet, as well as a business budget courtesy of Intuit Quickbooks.

For the monthly budget, there are two sheets: One is a summary that uses formulas to calculate your expenses and income. The other is where you record your incoming and outgoing transactions.

When using this spreadsheet, make sure that you only change the cells that are highlighted in pink:

1. Customize your planned expenses and their categories, as well as your planned income and its types.
2. Add expenses and income on the transaction sheet.
3. As you add items to the transaction sheet, the other fields on the summary sheet will automatically populate.

This is a great way to see at a glance if you're going over budget for a given month, and in what category.

At the end of each month you can add your monthly numbers to the annual budget spreadsheet.

1. The first thing you need to do is enter your opening savings balance on the Setup sheet.
2. On the Expenses sheet, fill in your monthly expenses for each category.
3. On the income sheet, fill in your monthly income for each type.
4. The summary sheet, which does not need to be edited, will auto-populate with your data based on your expenses and income, and includes a line graph to visualize your expenses and income throughout the year.

If you want something more elaborate, you can import Excel spreadsheet templates 7 Useful Excel Sheets to Instantly Improve Your Family Budget 7 Useful Excel Sheets to Instantly Improve Your Family Budget It's not always easy to set up a budget familiar, but these seven templates will give you the structure you need to get started. Read More There is no limit to financial planning spreadsheet templates. 15 Useful Spreadsheet Templates to Help Manage Your Finances. 15 Useful Spreadsheet Templates to Help Manage Your Finances. Always keep track of your financial health. These free spreadsheet templates are just the tools you need to manage your money. Read More And if none of these work for you, you can create a budget spreadsheet yourself. Make a Personal Budget in Excel in 4 Easy Steps Make a Personal Budget in Excel in 4 Easy Steps Do you have so much debt that it will take decades to pay off? ? It's time to make a budget and apply some Excel tricks to help you pay off your debt sooner. Read more.

And of course, Vertex's many budget spreadsheet offerings can be easily copied into Google Sheets using the Chrome gallery plugin.

Manage your to-do list with Google Sheets

There are TONS of ways to keep track of your to-do list. 5 New Productivity Apps to Manage Your To-Do List and Get Things Done. 5 New Productivity Apps to Manage Your To-Do List and Get Things Done. The best productivity app ever I know whatever works for you. In this list, you can find one that helps you get things done. Read more:Whether it's with digital apps on your phone or computer, or by using a bullet journal 4 Places to Find Inspiration for Your Bullet Journal 4 Places to Find Inspiration for Your Bullet Journal Starting out with a bullet journal can be overwhelming at first , but The online cartoon magazine community is incredibly active and full of inspiration. Read More

In an effort to keep everything in one place, you can simply opt for a Google Sheets to-do list.

The Google template is again a straightforward and easy to use option. It consists of only three columns:a column to mark the task as complete (with an x), a date, and information about the task itself.

Completed tasks are automatically crossed off, but you will see them in the list.

You can change the format of completed tasks using the Google Sheets conditional formatting feature. Do Amazing Functions With These Useful Google Spreadsheet Functions that the charm or power of Excel had on me because of the amazing things... Read More For example, you can change the color of the text or the padding of that cell. And if you find your to-do list getting cluttered, you can right-click the rows and select Hide Row to discard completed items without deleting them.

Given the collaborative nature of Google Sheets, you can also create a column for the task property. That way, members of a team know what everyone else is working on.

Other columns you can add include priority status and a due date.

Get your time back with Google Sheets

This is another one of those things that can be better served with an app, or even another Google offering in Google Calendar.

But again, if you're trying to transform your life into a semblance of organization, reducing the number of apps you have to use and keeping things simple might be a good approach.

The Google Calendar Schedule template offers you an easy way to record your daily appointments and tasks. You could even remove the to-do list if you want to tie your daily tasks to specific blocks of time.

You can also use this program to make a calendar lock. Making an effort to understand where you are going with each hour of your day, including sleep, is a good way to come to terms with whether or not you are using your time wisely.

Another way to find out where your time is going is by using a timesheet . Track how many hours you spend on projects, tasks, homework, and more.

The template for a weekly timesheet includes two sheets.

The first sheet: Record the date range and hours spent each day for a variety of projects. The sheet comes with four pre-populated projects. However, you can insert rows above the Total Hours row if you need more.

The second sheet: This shows a visual summary of how much time you spend on each project per week and how many hours you work per day.

More creative ideas you can try

You don't have to stop there. You can use Google Sheets for one-time projects or events, for the mundane tasks you don't want to do but need to do, and much more:

• Google Sheets offers a trip planning template with an agenda where you can fill in plans for transportation, accommodations, and events. Vertex's Travel Budget Spreadsheet is another useful template to add to your arsenal.
• Google Sheets has a mammoth wedding planning spreadsheet. It has just about everything you need to plan your big day:budgets, guest lists, to-dos, and more. If you have a big event coming up, use the wedding planner template and adjust it to suit your needs.
• Need to build a pro/con list a la Rory Gilmore? Google has you covered for that too.
• Trying to be mindful of what you eat? Use Vertex's meal planner or meal diary. Combine that with a weight loss chart if you're trying to lose a few pounds.
• Use a chore chart to organize your household work.

Look at the list of templates in the list. You will realize that there is much more you could do to get organized. Once you have all the information in Google Sheets, you can use visualizations to understand all the data you've saved. , a simple spreadsheet format is not attractive enough to make your data accessible. A dashboard allows you to present your most important data in an easy-to-digest format. Read more.