Free Word Count Tracker

This free word count tracker is designed to help you beat writing deadlines and plan daily word count goals. This post is the “user manual” for this powerful tool.

The word count tracker has two modes—deadlines, and project planning. In the deadlines page of the spreadsheet, you enter your start date, deadline, and target word count, and the spreadsheet calculates how many words you need to type per day to meet your goals. Then, you enter your word count after each writing session and your daily word count goals will automatically update.

If your project doesn’t have a strict deadline, the project planning page of the spreadsheet will help you track your progress and predict your finish date. This provides both a sense of accomplishment and motivation to finish your project.

To get this free word count tracker, just click the button below and we’ll email you the file right away.

It’s an Excel spreadsheet, but if you don’t have Excel, do not despair—just upload it to Google Drive, and it will work just as well.

Design Philosophy

This word count tracker is a simple tool. I made it this way because I am easily distracted: I will definitely play with cool features instead of writing. The philosopher said “know thyself;” since I do, I eliminated the distractions, which was faster than developing will power.

Another reason that I made this simple is because I am more likely to use it. I don’t have to fiddle with a bunch of steps: all I have to do is note down a few things and my projects seem to track themselves.

Sheet 1 — Beat Your Deadlines

When you open the first sheet, it should look like this:

You can add your project name at the top, where it says “Your Project Name.” I keep this as a master file in my productivity tools folder. When I start a new short project (a story, for example), I save a copy of this file in the folder with my project. I keep my master file clean.

Setup: Word Count, Deadline, Start Date

To set this file up, you need to change three variables: your total word goal, your deadline, and your start date (column I, cells 9–11).

Set your total word goal to whatever you want your final project length to be. Your deadline is, obviously, your deadline. You can play around with different start dates to determine how many words per day you would need to type based on when you start it—a very helpful feature for planning projects. (Notice that you can only have a year between your start date and your deadline.)

When you finish your inputs, the “Number of Days” cell (column I, row 12) will update to tell you how many days are between your start date and your deadline. The “Daily Word Goal” cell (column I, row 13) will tell you how many words you have to type every day, starting on your start date, to finish on your deadline. I always set my deadline early to allow for editing, but you must live your own life. Column A, the “Date” column, will also populate with the dates between your start date and your deadline.

Daily Usage: Starting Word Count, Finished Word Count

As before, if you are starting a new project with no words written, you are ready to go. If you already have some words written, enter them in the first “Start Count” cell (column B, row 9).

When you finish a writing session, enter the total word count of your document in the “End Count” column. The start count for the next day will populate automatically.

If you miss a day, just enter the start count for that day as the end count (if you leave the cell blank, it breaks the sheet):

This sheet also has a daily notes column, if you need it. I usually don’t use it, but I find it helpful often enough that I decided to keep it in.

Data Breakdown

The overview data in columns H–J, rows 15–18 will help you see whether you are on track to meet your deadline.

These are self-explanatory, but with one key metric: New Daily Word Goal

• “Words Completed” keeps a running total of the words you’ve finished.

• “Days Remaining” calculates how many days you have left from the day you opened your file until the deadline.

• “Words Remaining” shows how many words you have left to write before your deadline.

• “New Daily Word Goal” is the key metric: the spreadsheet calculates how many words you have to type every day until your deadline in order to meet your deadline.

Sheet 2 — Crush Your Word Count

When you open the second sheet, it should look like this:

Just like before, you can add your project name at the top, where it says “Your Project Name.” I keep this as a master file in my productivity tools folder. When I start, e.g., a new short story, I will save a copy of this file in the folder with my short story. That way, I always have the main file safely tucked away for further use.

Setup: Total Words and Daily Goal

To set the file up, you only need to change the two green numbers in column J, rows 9 and 10. The first number, set to 30,000 by default, is your total word goal—that is, how long the finished product should be. The second number, set to 1,000 by default, is your daily word goal—that is, how many words you want to write every day.

Set these numbers to suit your project, and you will see the orange numbers update. (Keep in mind that this is set to track a project up to one year.)

Here, I set my total word goal to 50,000, and my daily word goal to 750. That means I’ll finish in about 67 days (yes, that’s a rounding error; no, it won’t break anything).

One Big Difference: The Days Column

You’ll notice that column A will populate the cells with the number of days you have left on your project. This column will update automatically: if you meet your daily goal, the length stays the same; if you beat your goal, it will take you fewer days; if you miss your goal, it will take you more time.

Unlike the deadlines sheet, this sheet will automatically populate the total number of days. You will manually enter the dates in this sheet — remember, this sheet isn’t about meeting deadlines, but about crushing word counts. Enter your date for each writing sessions, and the sheet will automatically update how many more writing sessions you will need based on your goals and progress.

Daily Usage: Date, Starting Word Count, Finished Word Count

For each writing session on your project, first enter the “Date” in Column B (the one that says Date). Then, check your starting word count.

If you are starting a brand new project, this is easy. The spreadsheet is set up with a starting word count of zero. Just start writing.

But, if you start using this to track a project you have already started, make sure and update the “Start Count” cell (column C, row 9) to your document’s current word count. Here is a side-by-side comparison; the image on the left is a new project, the image on the right is a project with 5,000 words already written:

When you finish a writing session, note your final total word count and put it in the appropriate row in column D, the “End Count” column. The spreadsheet will do all the math for you to figure out your daily word count. The spreadsheet will also update your starting word count for your next writing session. Here’s what that looks like:

Don’t change your start count during the next session. If you edit and end up with fewer words, just enter your total as the new end count. You’ll end up with a more accurate picture of how your project developed.

Data Breakdown

In addition to the running totals, you’ll see some overview stats update in columns I–K too.

These are self-explanatory:

• “Words Completed” is a running total of how many words you have typed.

• “Days Remaining” is the number of days it will take you to finish your project if you hit your daily word goal every day.

• “Words Remaining” is how many words you have to finish your project.

• “Most Recent Work” lets you know the last date you worked on a project at a glance (useful for projects if you’ve spent a long time on them).

Lastly, if you need to keep some notes about a writing session, you can enter them in column G (the Daily Notes column).

That’s it. That’s the whole sheet. Like I said, it’s simple. It takes me no more than a minute to log my daily words. That means I’m more likely to use it. That makes it more useful.

Next Steps

I hope that you find a lot of use in this word count tracker spreadsheet. Please share it far and wide (subject to the minor limitations found in the licensing agreement).

This is a simple project, but are here are a few features I have considered adding:

• Data visualization: I like to graph progress over time.

• Monthly Sheets: It might be nice to track progress over a year, rather than on individual projects.

• Project Management: I want to develop some tools to track characters, plot lines, bibliographies, and the like.

What else would you include? Are there any features you would change? Let me know!

Words for Humans is a weekly newsletter of tips for content creation on the post-AI internet. Subscribe below so you never miss an issue.