How to Create Notion Progress Bar for Checklist, To-Do or Checkbox
October 10, 2024
Table of Contents
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Are you looking to enhance your productivity in Notion?
In this guide, I’ll show you a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a progress bar for your checklists, to-dos, or checkbox items in Notion.
By the end of this post, you'll learn how to visually track your progress, task completion rates and stay motivated while tackling your tasks.
What is a Notion Progress Bar?
A Notion progress bar is a visual tool used to track the completion of tasks or goals within a Notion database.
This visual cue shows a green bar along with a percentage number to indicate how much of your tasks are completed.
It helps you quickly see your progress and stay motivated to complete the remaining tasks.
What You'll Learn?
- How to find the percentage of completed checkbox using Notion formula?
- How to filter tasks to only show today’s checked boxes within the formula?
- How to create a visual progress bar that updates based on today’s checkboxes?
Using Progress Bar For To-Dos
So, this might be your scenario..
You want to use Notion to create a daily task template that automatically counts how many tasks % are checked off.
For example, if you have 4 tasks for today and check off 2, the progress bar should show 50%.
If you had 3 tasks checked off for yesterday, the progress bar should not show 100% for today. Instead, it should display 100% for yesterday and 50% for today.
And if you have tasks for "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow," you should be able to clearly see the percentage of checked boxes for each specific day.
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Here's what we will fix:
When you input today's date and mark tasks as completed, the progress percentage will automatically update, showing the total for today’s tasks only.
Step-by-Step Guide to Create a Notion Progress Bar
Step 1: Create a Database with the Relevant Columns
- On a empty Notion page, type the slash ("/") and select "Database — Inline." Name this database "Tasks". Create the following columns with these properties:
- Task name: A text field for the task (default column).
- Date: A date property for each task.
- Checkbox: A checkbox property to indicate whether the task is completed.
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- Populate some sample data to work with in the next steps:
- Add some to-do examples for today’s date.
- Add some to-do examples for yesterday’s date.
- Randomly check off some boxes to mark tasks as completed.
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Step 2: Create Another Database for the Current Date
- Type the slash ("/") and select "Database — Inline." Name this database "Current Date". Create the following columns with these properties:
- Name: A text field for date name (default column).
- Relation: As "Tasks". See Step 3.
- Rollup: As "Progress Bar". See Step 4.
Step 3: Edit The Relation Property
- In the Current Date database, add a new column and select Relation.
- Link to your "Tasks" database.
- Continue to edit the relation setting:
- Rename this Relation to "Tasks". This property helps you look up which daily tasks are associated with each day.
- Show On Tasks: enable this
- Hit the "Add Relation" blue button.
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Step 4: Link Tasks to Current Date
- Go back to your "Tasks" database. You should see a new Relation column labeled "Current Date".
- Click on the "Current Date" field to link tasks to the relevant date. If the relevant date isn't listed, you can add a new date.
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- Check your Current Date database:
- You should now see your Tasks column linked with the related pages from the Tasks database.
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It’s a bit tricky to see which days these tasks were created on, so go to the three dots ("..."), select "Customize Shown Properties," and choose "Date" to display in the relation.
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Step 5: Create The Progress Bar For Each Day
- Go back to your "Current Date" database.
- Add a "Rollup" property next to the "Tasks" relation column.
- Name this Rollup as "Progress Bar".
- Edit the Rollup property:
- Name it Progress Bar.
- Relation: Tasks.
- Property: Checkbox.
- Calculate: Percent checked.
- Display as: Bar.
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Step 6: Create a Gallery View to Display Today’s Progress
- In your Current Date database, add a new Gallery view next to the Table view.
- Click the three dots ("...") to the left of the blue New button.
- Select Properties and choose Progress or Tasks to display.
- Now, you should see your task completion progress for each date as a visual bar.
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Easy Method To Calculate Completed Checklist Percentage
If Relation and Rollup aren't to your liking, you can use a simpler method to display your completed checklist progress.
- Go back to your "Task" database. Over the 3 dots ("..." ) on the top right corner of the database, select "Group".
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- Then, edit the settings as below, i.e. Group by Date:
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- And then Date by "Day":
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- Display the percentage of checked boxes:
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- Finally, you can view your task completion %:
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- Pros of using this method: Easy to implement. You can view your task completion percentage within a single database, without needing separate databases that require linking through Relation.
- Cons of using this method: Lacks visual cues and cannot display a dedicated progress bar for each specific day.
Frequenly Asked Questions
1. How to create a progress bar formula in Notion?
To create a progress bar formula in Notion, you need to:
- Set up a database with checkboxes for task completion.
- Use a Rollup property to calculate the percentage of checked boxes based on a relation between tasks and the current date.
- Format the Rollup property to display as a bar, showing progress in real-time.
2. What types of progress bars are available in Notion?
There are two types of progress bars in Notion: the native progress bar and the custom progress bar.
The native progress bar in Notion automatically displays task completion. You can choose between a bar or rings to visually track your progress.
A custom progress bar, however, allows you to customize the design.
For example, with a custom progress bar, if all tasks are checked, it can display 100% completion by filling all squares (e.g., ◼◼◼◼◼). If none are checked, it will show no progress with empty squares (❏❏❏❏❏).
3. How to customize the progress bar appearance?
If you want to customize the style of your progress bar, you can add a Formula column to your database. Here’s how to set it up:
- Goal value: Set this as a number property (e.g., 10).
- Current value: Set this as another number property (e.g., 5).
- Progress: Use a formula to calculate the progress (e.g., 5/10 = 0.5).
- Formula: Follow the instructions below
Edit the Formula's properties:
repeat("◼", toNumber(prop("Current value"))) + repeat("◻", toNumber(prop("Goal value")) - toNumber(prop("Current value")))
If your Goal value is 10 and your Current value is 5, the formula will output: ◼◼◼◼◼◻◻◻◻◻
Let's Recap
To calculate the percentage of completed checklists/checkboxes for "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow" in Notion, you can create two databases: one for your to-do list and another for the current dates.
Each time you add a new task, link the to-do item to the current date database. The progress bar will then automatically update the percentage in real-time as you complete your tasks.