Creating a Goal Tracking Chart in Excel

I am a visual type of guy and like to see things in either hard print or digital data right in front of me. I have two portfolio goals I have set for myself – one is a short-term goal (link) and the other is a long-term (link) goal. To see how I am tracking to these goals I have created a nifty little Microsoft Excel chart that shows presents me with a cool vidual representation of where I am at in relation to each goal. It was very easy to set up and have outlined the steps below to do this yourself.

Here are the two charts I created to track each of my goals. I am using Apple Numbers to create these charts so yours will look a little bit different. The steps below are for Excel since that is what the majority of people use as a spreadsheet program.

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The Steps:

1. Open up Microsoft Excel and create a new spreadsheet

2. Set up column A, B, and C just as it is displayed below. Be sure to leave row 3 blank – there must be an empty cell between rows 2 and 3. In addition, be sure to leave column C blank as well.

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3. Select cell B4 and click the Chart Wizard button.

4. In the Chart Wizzard box, select Column as the chart type and Clustered Column as the chart sub-type. Click Next.

5. Don’t chnage anything in the Data Range or Series tabs – just Click Next again.

6. In the Chart Wizard – Step 3 of 4 – Chart Options box that displays, make the following changes: 1) Titles: Enter a title for your chart, 2) Axes: Deselect Category axis, 3) Legend: Deselect Show Legend. Click Finish.

7. Double click the column in the chart to bring up the Format Data Series box. In the Options tab, enter a 0 in the Gap Width box. Click Ok.

8. Double click the vertical axix to bring up the Format Axis box. In the Scale tab, manually enter a 0 in the minimum box. In the maximum box, enter your goal target. For my short-term goal, this value was 70000. Make sure there are no tick marks beside the minimum and maximum so that Excel does not do auto-scaling. Click Ok.

9. You now have a goal tracking chart. You can format the chart to your hearts content by right-clicking on different parts of the chart and selecting the Format… menu item. Play around with it until you get something that looks cool to you.

10. I print these off an place them on my desk as a constant reminder of the goal and how I am doing.

I hope that was helpful. Setting and maintaining goals is a crucial element in the investment process and I encourage you to find a system that works for you to track your progress.

(Photo Credit: Steve Woods)