An Assignment Tracker You’ll Actually Use | Google Sheets & Forms

About this video

Jess Stratton builds an assignment tracker by creating the Google Form first (in Drive via New > Google Forms), then linking it to Sheets. The form fields she creates are: assignment (short answer), status as a dropdown (Not started, In progress, Need help, Completed), a checkbox option for marking done, class as a dropdown listing your classes, due date (which Forms sets as a date), priority as a dropdown (High and Low), a difficulty rating (which she notes could instead track estimated hours, with a number and emoji), and notes. Under Responses she uses Link to Sheets to create a new spreadsheet (default name Assignment tracker responses), then publishes the form — managing who can access it, noting on a business account it defaults to the organisation and for personal use it should be only you — and submits dummy responses such as a Midterm. In the response sheet she warns that directly editing form response data is not best practice (ideally use a separate sheet with a formula, QUERY or FILTER) but does so here because only one person uses it. She hides the timestamp column, bolds the assignment column, converts columns to matching dropdown types via Edit column type, makes difficulty a rating via smart chips, and adds a Done checkbox column. She adds conditional formatting over B2 through column I with a custom formula testing whether the checkbox cell (I2, with a dollar sign so the rule applies across the table) equals TRUE, applying strikethrough and greyed-out text. She then adds a Due Soon column driven by a separate Icons sheet holding a fire emoji in cell A1, using an IF formula that inserts that referenced emoji when the due date in E2 minus TODAY() is less than or equal to 7 days, otherwise leaving it blank, with autofill. As a bonus she shows opening the form on an iPhone, customising its header image, copying its link, and using Add to Home Screen with ‘Open as web app’ toggled on for quick entry.

Key takeaways

• Create the Google Form before the sheet: include assignment, status dropdown, class dropdown, due date, priority, difficulty rating and notes, then use Responses > Link to Sheets to create the tracker spreadsheet.
• Jess warns editing the raw Form Responses sheet directly is not best practice — ideally pull data to a separate sheet with a formula, QUERY or FILTER — and only does it here for a single-user tracker.
• Match the sheet to the form by editing column types to dropdowns and a rating, hide the unnecessary timestamp column, and add a separate Done checkbox column if you prefer checking off over setting status to Completed.
• Use conditional formatting with a custom formula testing the Done checkbox (shown as $I2 = TRUE) to automatically strikethrough and grey out a completed assignment row.
• Flag deadlines with a Due Soon column: store a fire emoji on an Icons sheet (cell A1) and use an IF formula comparing the due date to TODAY() to show it when the date is within 7 days; add the form to a phone home screen as a web app for fast entry.

Episode details: published February 20, 2026 · 13:40 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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