20+ SAMPLE Tracking Chart Templates in PDF | MS Word | Excel

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What Is a Tracking Chart?

It is easy to come up with plans as to what you think you should do to achieve a goal or complete a project. But most of these fail, and this is not because you lack self-control, abilities, and knowledge. It is because, most of the time, we lose sight of what we want to accomplish, despite already having clear progress. This is when the role of tracking things comes into play. From business pursuits to personal endeavors, there is nothing tracking charts cannot keep tabs of. This type of chart, from the term itself, is a tool used to track, plan, and organize various tasks required to complete tasks, projects, and so much more.

With a tracking chart, you can also identify the resources necessary for the execution of some of your tasks. You can keep track of your progress, particularly your milestones. Every milestone, whether big or small, is worth keeping track of. Your tracking chart may also contain many dependencies. This includes the tasks that are related to each other that—without the completion of one task, you will also have difficulty fulfilling yours.

How Effective Is It to Keep Track of Things?

Tracking things is effective and powerful as it does so many things to your work progress. When you keep track of your projects, tasks, and the like, it makes your goal-setting easier and clears the path to put you in the right direction. Keeping track of things also enables you to reduce failures and get rid of any possible risk that comes between you and the achievement of your targets. It is also in tracking that you would know exactly what you are doing at the moment. When you know what you’re doing, you can quickly identify whether what you are doing is in line with your purpose. In the long run, tracking will make you put more value on your work until each progressive day leads you closer toward the completion of your projects and the fulfillment of your pursuits.

Things to Track in a Tracking Chart

In need of tracking chart ideas? Take notes from some of the possible things you can keep track of in a tracking chart listed below.

Employee Matters

Know your workforce by keeping a tracking chart that keeps a record of their attendance, performance, hours worked, and so on. If you have scheduled assessments with every single one of your employees, make sure you have something to present to them how they fared well in their responsibilities. If you have some problems with some of your employees, you can keep track of that in a tracking chart so you would know what they should work on. The same thing goes if you found your employees’ performance impressive?you can also keep track of their commendable performance so you can reward them accordingly. No matter what you decide to keep tabs on about them, a tracking chart can help you all the way.

Academic Progress

For teachers and students who need to keep track of academic progress in school, a tracking chart for both parties can be as useful. For teachers, tracking charts can help them in keeping track of what their students are working on in a specific subject within a given period. Teacher tracking charts may also include relevant information on what the students are working, such as its complexity as well as how their students are learning from it. You may also keep track of your students’ study habits and determine the areas where they need the most improvement.

On the other hand, tracking charts for students hold every student accountable for their performance in school. They can keep track of their study habits, their projects, and other academic goals and endeavors. Whenever they make any learning progress or even when they feel experience any difficulties during the discussion, they can easily maintain a record of it in a tracking chart and have something to discuss and ask about on the next discussion. However, the strategy of keeping track of their progress failed to get the recognition it deserves even though this practice of keeping tabs of their progress and development had a 32 percentile point gain in terms of their achievement in school.

Project Development

Managing a project, whether big or small, will always involve tedious processes that are, sad to say, rightfully so if you are hellbent on making it successful. With the tasks, target dates, and people that you need to keep an eye on, there is always the likelihood of missing out on some of the crucial elements of project management and development. And when this indeed happens, it will cost you a lot. That said, you can make use of tracking charts to oversee the entire project. You can use it to determine what needs reviewing, what needs execution, and so on.

Savings and Expenses

Should you want to achieve financial freedom, you can start by making use of a tracking chart to keep track of your savings and expenses. Once you begin this practice, rest assured that you will no longer wonder where your money goes, worry about not having savings, or even worry about how you are going to make ends meet.

Now, how can you make this possible with just the use of tracking charts? It’s simple. When it comes to savings, monitoring charts allows you to review how much you have already saved up, and in the process, it furthers hypes you up to save even more so you can finally attain your target savings amount. When dealing with expenses through a tracking chat, you will feel compelled to stick to your budget and control what goes into the next time around since you are already aware of what goes into your discretionary and non-discretionary expenses.

Habits

Trying to change your habits for the better? Wanting to build new ones? Getting yourself a habit tracking chart is a good start to ensure that you are off to a good start of habit formation. Adopting a new habit takes at an average of 66 days or at least two months before it sticks and becomes a part of your routine. Within such period, see to it that you make the most out of your initiative to develop new habits by keeping a habit tracking chart with you at all times. So when the time comes when you feel tired and unmotivated, simply look at your progress through your tracking chart, and you will be back on your feet in no time.

Behavior

For teachers who deal with young minds such as preschool pupils, you can report about their behavior development to parents by simply showing a tracking chart. Whether parents would like to admit or not, some children are hard to deal with. But where else can they get the discipline and proper behavior they need to learn in their early childhood than from their preschool teachers? Should the time come that you would need to go on a behavior modification plan for the pupils you handle, make use of a tracking chart, and success will be a guarantee.

Business Return on Investment

Do you want a reliable proof that you have already gained your target return on investment or ROI? Start tracking your business efforts, and you will obtain that proof. With a tracking chart, you gain an avenue where you can gather and organize the data of your business achievements and struggles and the opportunity to review it. Since you now have a bird’s eye view of how well (or bad) your business performance is, this will lead to better money management, improved and enhanced company practices, and eventually growth and success in all your business pursuits.

Goals

At the start of the new year, you may already have a lot of goals lined up. Read books, achieve weight loss, start an exercise routine, learn a new skill?there are so many goals you have plotted out for the new year ahead. But the question is, are you committed enough to go through the process of achieving it? Or are you only good and enthusiastic at the start only to feel discouraged halfway? Whatever goals you have in mind, it’s better to keep track of your personal progress using a tracking chart. Doing so will help you feel continuously inspired and fired up, knowing that you have started such a goal. So, it would be a waste to end it before it gets halfway or even from the get-go.

How Do You Make Tracking Charts a Tool for Success?

Tracking charts are ordinary sheets of paper if you won’t make an effort to make actual progress. But even if you get a hold of an excellent tracking chart template, it will be rendered useless if you have no idea how to make the most out of it.

Here are some guidelines that can help you in making tracking charts work for you and your needs.

1. Know What System Works for You

As mentioned, it doesn’t matter if you get access to a well-made tracking chart template if you don’t know how to make it work in your favor. This is why you must know what kind of system that best fits your needs. The system here means two things: one is where you put on your tracking chart, and the other is how you keep track of your daily tasks.

Determine where you want to place your tracking charts. It could be on your cellphone, on your laptop, in your notebook, or a printed sheet of paper. Know what works for you so you can then figure out what how frequent you would fill out your tracking chart. You are highly encouraged to write things down into your tracking chart as soon as it is mentioned or as soon as you think about it so you wouldn’t lose ideas with potential, especially the most brilliant ones.

2. Identify the Tasks You are Accountable For

If you are working with other people, consider including their tasks in your tracking chart, especially if it affects your work in the process. As soon as you start a project, get a hold of a tracking chart so you can conveniently fill out your responsibilities as well as the responsibilities of other people that also fall under your area of management. If you know that you are also accountable for what goes on with other people’s work progress, never lose sight of it. By doing this, you are not only doing others a favor, but you are also helping out yourself to get things done, create progress, and eventually achieve success.

3. Determine What Needs to Be Done

Tracking charts may seem like a type of chart that is exclusively used to keep track of development alone. However, you can also use tracking charts to keep you updated with the things that need execution within a timeframe. Whether you have tasks that you need to fulfill within the day at work, jot these down into your tracking chart to ease, you can conveniently keep track of your progress at the end of the day. Even if there are some things that you fail to accomplish, you can quickly move these tasks into the future, and you would still know your progress in the process.

4. Design and Format One That Can Be Analyzed and Optimized

If you want to create a tracking chart from scratch or if you want to customize a plain-looking tracking chart template, you should consider designing and formatting one that you can easily understand and make the most effective use out of. You can set a color-coding system if the tracking chart is for business matters. You can also make use of artworks and other graphics elements if the tracking chart is to keep tabs of your personal progress. It is in this way that you can easily comprehend the contents of your tracking chart while you also enjoy the process of filling out one.

Just like maps, tracking charts leads you to where you want to be without losing your purpose. The more you monitor and keep a record of your work progress, the higher your chances of success. The next time you embark on a whole new pursuit in your business, academics, or even just in your personal life, be sure that you download any of the tracking chart templates and samples provided for you in this article.