Creating a progress bar in Notion is an excellent way to visually track your goals, tasks, or project development. While Notion doesn’t have a built-in progress bar feature, with a little creativity and some formula magic, you can design your own dynamic progress indicators. Whether you’re tracking daily habits, monitoring project completion, or preparing for exams, progress bars offer a visual boost to your motivation.
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Why Use a Progress Bar in Notion?
Notion is known for its flexibility, allowing users to build everything from to-do lists and notes to full-fledged project dashboards. A progress bar can add a visual dimension to project tracking, helping you to:
- Quickly assess progress
- Stay motivated
- Improve accountability
- Set measurable targets
Step-by-Step: Creating a Progress Bar in Notion
Let’s dive into how you can create a progress bar using Notion’s built-in formula feature and database properties.
1. Set up Your Database
First, create a database to house the items or tasks you’re tracking. This could be a Kanban board, a table, or a list. Each row or card represents a task or goal segment. Add the following columns:
- Status – A checkbox or select property (for marking if the task is done).
- Progress (%) – A formula property to calculate the progress.
- Visual Progress Bar – Another formula property that will generate the progress bar.
2. Calculate the Progress
In the Progress (%) column, you’ll add a formula to determine the completion percentage. Suppose you have checkboxes for your tasks and want to calculate how many are checked. If you’re tracking subtasks per entry, use a roll-up or create a formula using counts like this:
round(prop("Completed Tasks") / prop("Total Tasks") * 100)This formula returns the percentage of tasks completed.
3. Create the Visual Progress Bar
Now for the fun part: making it visual. In your “Visual Progress Bar” formula property, use this formula:
let p := prop("Progress (%)");
let blocks := floor(p / 10);
format(slice("▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓", 0, blocks)) + format(slice("░░░░░░░░░░", 0, 10 - blocks)) + " " + format(p) + "%"
This creates a 10-character bar where “▓” represents progress and “░” represents remaining effort. As your percentage grows, the bar fills accordingly.
Alternative Methods to Display Progress
Maybe you want a more visual or colorful alternative? While Notion formulas are limited to text output, you can use emoji or Unicode blocks for an aesthetic twist. Try using emoji like:
repeat("🟩", floor(p / 10)) + repeat("⬜", 10 - floor(p / 10))
This gives you a neat green block and white block visual representation.
Embedding Progress in Dashboards
You can also embed these progress bars into your larger dashboards. Create linked databases and add filtered views to monitor “Today’s Tasks,” “This Week’s Projects,” or “Goal Completion Rate.” Use gallery views with the formula visible in the preview for a sleek dashboard style.
Tips for Better Usage
- Use roll-ups for nested tasks: If a project contains sub-tasks, utilize roll-ups to aggregate progress from child pages into a master progress bar.
- Color code using properties: Add a select or status property with color-coded tags like ‘On Track’, ‘Needs Attention’, etc.
- Integrate with Timeline view: For projects, you can pair the progress bar with a timeline to get both time-based and percentage-based tracking.
Final Thoughts
Although Notion doesn’t support native graphical widgets, its formulas open up clever ways to visualize data. Progress bars are a fantastic example of creativity within the platform’s current limitations. Whether using blocks, emojis, or textual cues, these bars provide instant feedback on your efforts and help you stay on track with whatever you’re working toward.
So next time you set a goal or plan a project in Notion, take a few extra minutes to add a progress bar. It just might give you that extra push to cross the finish line.