Author: Debra Dalgleish

Is summer a quiet time for your small business? If so, it could be the perfect time to work on growing your business! And I’ve got a couple of free Excel workbooks to help you!

My Contextures site features Microsoft Excel tips, videos and tutorials, and things slow down in the summer. People are at the beach, instead of in their offices or classrooms!

Summer Business Task Challenge

I’ll take some time off too, but I also want to work on growing my business. It’s a never-ending job!

To make things more fun, I created a Business Task Challenge template in Excel (and you can get a copy).

• In the file, I’ve listed about 90 tasks that I could do this summer, or have my summer intern work on.
• We’ll each pick a target number of tasks to complete
• Excel formulas will track our progress

This task challenge will help us focus on getting things done,:

• Our goal tasks will be selected at the beginning of the summer season
• We won’t waste any time, wondering what to do next!

List Your Business Tasks

If you’d like to do a task challenge too, you can get the template on my Contextures site, on the Sample Files page.

• In the Functions section, look for FN0079 – Business Task Tracker

To help you get started, I made a list of 89 business tasks. You can work with my list, or customize the list with your own tasks.

Formulas at the top of the worksheet show the total number of tasks, and how many are finished.

Check the “Done” box, for each task, when you’ve finished it.

• Note: If you don’t have check boxes in your version of Excel, you can use TRUE and FALSE in the Done column.

Filter the Task List

To make it easier to choose your tasks, there are two Slicers on the Excel worksheet.

• Category – click one of the category names, to see only those tasks in the list
• Who – click one of the “Who” names, to see only the tasks for that person

Later, to see all the tasks again, click the “Clear Filter” button, at the top right of each Slicer.

Vision Board Tasks

Another type of  task challenge is based on a  vision board bingo card.

• Put 24 tasks or goals in a grid
• Cross off the tasks, when you finish them

I made an Excel Vision Board bingo template, that you can get on my Contextures site.

• Note: The vision board template uses the FILTER function, which is available in Excel 365

Video: Vision Board Demo

You can see a quick demo of my vision board in the video below. I show how the Vision Board bingo template works, and how you can customize it, to use your own goals and tasks.

Vision Board Example

The screen shot below shows some of the goals in my sample file.

• I’ve put 92 goals in the file
• You can mark any 24 of them, for the bingo card
• Later, mark different tasks, for a fresh bingo card

You can also edit, delete or add goals and tasks in the list, to customize it for your own business tasks or personal goals!

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