A to-do list that knows what’s late
Most task templates are a table with a checkbox. This one has an “as of” date, and every row
compares its due date to it: before is Overdue, equal is Today, within a week is Soon. Put a
✓ in Done and the row greys out and stops counting. The top of the sheet keeps the score —
tasks, done, overdue, progress with a bar.
The ✓ comes from a dropdown rather than a native checkbox because checkboxes are new in Excel,
absent in older versions and different in Numbers; a validated cell works everywhere, and any
mark counts.
Pro: Focus and Board
Focus is the sheet you’d open on Monday: the overdue tasks, then what’s due today or this
week, each with its date, priority and days — and how many you finished in the last seven
days. Board counts tasks per category and status with progress bars, and per person and
priority. Setup holds the date, the horizon and the three dropdown lists.
Lists without FILTER
“Show me the overdue tasks” is a filter — and FILTER doesn’t exist in Excel 2016 or Numbers.
Instead, a helper column numbers the overdue tasks 1, 2, 3 with a running COUNTIF, and Focus
looks up number 1, 2, 3 with INDEX/MATCH. The same trick lists what’s due soon. Both columns
are visible on Tasks, greyed, explained on the Formulas sheet.
Checked, not just built
The build recalculates both workbooks in LibreOffice and in a second, independent engine and
compares forty-nine values — every status on the sample list, days left, the summary, the
helper numbering, the Focus lists row by row, the Board counts — against numbers computed
outside Excel.