Precise Notion Progress Bars (Free Template)

Notion is great. It’s amazing.

If you’re using Notion for every darn thing as I am, you probably keep a ton of tasks in it.

One of the best ways to make your task lists more functional and more eye-pleasing is by adding progress bars.

Check out how big the difference is between this project view with and without the notion progress bars:

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Much better, right?

If you’re already experienced with Notion, you can just pick those up below. To learn how to use and customize them, continue reading.

Here’s the “trailer” video I made on the topic:

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Jordan Parker

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Now, let’s start from the beginning:

#Why use progress bars in Notion

Good looks are one reason, of course, but I believe progress bars have a much higher value than just making a pretty picture. Not that the pretty picture doesn’t matter.

The best way to get anything done is:

1. Get started.
2. Make small, consistent steps until you finish it.

The thing about getting started is that it’s incredibly hard. It can be both frustrating and unmotivating to find yourself not being able to get started.

I solve that by building momentum. It’s far easier to get started after you take a look at all the progress you’ve made recently. That’s where progress bars come in.

Using a progress bar, you get a realistic view of your, well, progress. This can jaunt your motivation and get you that extra oomph you need to get going.

#Why yet another progress bars for Notion? What makes this one special?

I know, I know — there are already several Notion templates for progress bars. I actually used several of them before making my own.

The unique thing about my progress bars is that they’re more precise. I didn’t find any progress bars that show a step smaller than 10%. I made ones that can go as low as 5%. Simple as that.

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If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re at the right place!

#Use & Customization of the Notion progress bars

The cool thing is that you can use any special character or emoji to create your own progress bar.

Here are some of the looks you might get:

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So, how do you use it?

You’ll need two columns:

1. A column named “Progress” — a decimal number that goes from 0 to 1 (0 meaning 0% progress and 1 meaning 100% progress).
2. An equation column with the actual progress bar — you should copy & paste the formula from the table to make your life easy.

That’s all there is to it, doing those two steps you should be able to get any progress bar from the example up & running.

Now, how do you customize this thing?

That part is a bit more tricky.

This is what the formula looks like:

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It’s a bit daunting but worry not!

There are two things you need to do to customize it:

1. Replace all the progress characters with the characters/emoji you want. Use the Find & Replace function in a text redactor.
2. Change the “magic numbers”. You’ll notice there are two underlied 1s in the formula. That’s no accident — those are the “magic numbers”. Because of the fact that emoji have different character sizes — they don’t always display correctly in such a formula. To fix that you multiply their size by a small number (1, 2, 3, or 4) and that will fix the display for you.
   Just try out a few combinations replacing each respective 1 with either number until you get the desired result (e.g. a 10-character progress bar that looks normal).

It’s not the easiest process (digging through formulas is tedious) but it’s very achievable. If you get stuck — ping me on Discord.

#Fin

That’s all there is to it. Enjoy having precise visible progress in Notion!

If you have any extra questions, Ask them below or in our Discord!

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Stay Awesome,

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