Okay, honestly? I don’t consider myself an Excel guru. That said, I’ve shared versions of this spreadsheet with other writers and they agree that it is SUPER MOTIVATING.
This spreadsheet works by being both the carrot and the stick simultaneously. 😉 It assumes you’re writing in Word, or some other program that gives you an entire document wordcount. (I’ve used it with Scrivener as well.) It adds up how many words you wrote today, how many days it’s been since you wrote last, your average wordcount, how many words you have to go on your project, and your estimated finish date if you write your average wordcount every single day.
The only Excel you need to know is how to use fill down. TL;DR: Just highlight the cells and hit control-D, or use the cute little graphical button.
You can get the spreadsheet here.
