Is there really anything better than checking off something on your to-do list? Type A people definitely don’t think so. And in 2020, you no longer have to handwrite all of your checklists. In fact, you can use a software that you probably already use regularly – Microsoft Excel. Sure, we use Excel for all sorts of other datasets and graphs but you can also use it to make a handy excel checklist template! This is actually quite simple to do and can allow you to stay organized and also eliminate the possibility that you lose the tiny piece of paper that you tend to write your checklists on. So here is a three step guide to creating an excel checklist template:
Step 1
The first thing that you need to do when trying to create an excel checklist template is to enable the developer tab within the program. You need to first right-click on the ribbon and then select “customize the ribbon.” Then, once you are in the “Excel options” box, look on the right side of the two different columns for the “main tabs” column. On the bottom half of that list is an option named “developer,” check this box and then click ok to exit out of this menu.
Step 2
Once the developer tab is checked you can move on to the next step of creating your checklist which is actually entering the items into the cells to create your list. Enter all of the items on your list – making sure to only enter one per cell with an optional title for your list in the A1 cell. The good news about using Excel instead of a handwritten list is that you can make it as long as you want without running out of room (or ink!) This is why Excel checklists can be really helpful for long and complex tasks that will require a lot of items on the list.
Step 3
Once you have all of your items inserted into the list, you can move on to the third and final step which is creating the actual checkboxes! This is the trickiest part of the process but once you create your first checkbox it will become easier in the future. In order to add the checkboxes, you need to click on the developer tab that you previously enabled in step one, then click on “insert” and click on the check box option under “form control.” Then, click into the cell where you want the checkbox. A text box will automatically appear next to the check box but you usually don’t want that so you will need to go in and delete it by highlighting only the text part and erasing it. In order to create checkboxes for each item on your list you do not have to keep doing this process over and over again! No, all you have to do is select any other cell around the checkbox and then use one of the arrow keys on your computer to move to the cell with the checkbox. The next step is to move your mouse over the bottom right-hand corner of the selected cell with the checkbox in it until a plus sign appears in its place. With your cursor, drag the plus sign down over all of the cells that you want to copy the checkbox into and then release your cursor. Voila! The checkbox has been copied to all of those cells and you can now go on to save this as a template and use it for all of your future checklist needs.
