A couple of months ago, I shared some details about how I track my progress through this hobby and how satisfying it is to be able to look back on all I’ve accomplished over the past year.  I ended with a promise to make a blank copy of it available to anyone interested in doing the same.

Well, I’m done!  It took me a bit longer than I thought it would (I initially thought I’d be done with this back in October) but the extra time went into refining the sort of data it tracks (it now accounts for assembly and conversion, in addition to simple painting) and making the formulae as flexible as possible (because I wanted this to be accessible to folks who don’t have a lot of Excel experience.)

I’m going to walk through how to access it and then how to use it.

Q: How Do I Access This Thing?

The spreadsheet is a Google Spreadsheet.  To maintain your own copy, you need a Google account: if you have a Blogger blog, you already have one.  It will be added to and interfaced from your Google Documents page.

To get to the blank copy I’ve created for you (yes, you!) to access:

• Follow this link.

  You should now be in edit-mode for the spreadsheet.  Inconveniently, though, all of the sheets are locked down.  That’s so the sheet is always pristine for the next guy.  When the spreadsheet’s in your account, that won’t affect you.

• So, copy the sheet to your Google Docs account.

  Click “File” -> “Make a Copy”

  

  Call it whatever you want.  It’s yours, now.  Leave the checkbox unchecked.

That’s all there is to it!

Q: How Do I Use This Thing?

There are six sheets in this sucker.

General rule: if the cell is greyed out: you probably should leave it alone.  It’s calculated.

Also, I’ve include a little bit of data to provide you with an example of how this stuff should look.  Alternatively, you can always check out my copy.

1. Introduction

I blab a bit about what the sheet does and why I did it.  Sort of like I’m doing here, but with less verbosity.  You can delete this if you want, hang onto it, whatever.

2. Hobby

As far as I’m concerned, this is the meat of the sheet.  Here’s where you log what you finish as you finish it.  Note the year, the month, the model.  How many, what system and army.  What the type is.

Key fields here are:

• Quantity – How many
• Assembly Value – How much work went into putting the model together.  Things scale up from simple kit assembly to scratch building.  How you rate things is up to you.  There’s a guide to the right.  
• Painting Value – The scale of the undertaking.  This is an arbitrary value; I’m including the Lone Pilgrim chart to the right, but how you rate something is up to you.  I gave my display board, for example, a value of “20.”