Planning events can be difficult, especially if you’re trying to coordinate other people. Thankfully it’s easy to create and print an online planner using a free online calendar planner. This will allow you to organize and share your event planning with others. When creating an online planner, you’ll first want to choose a theme and customize it according to your needs. Make sure the online calendar has fields for all the details of your event such as date, time, location and any other information such as start and end times. If you need to also print it out, choose a blank template that can be printed on your computer.
Project Timeline Template
Download Project Timeline Template
Excel | Google Sheets | PPT | Smartsheet
This template is intended for the project planner who needs something more dynamic than a traditional, static project calendar. The simple, easy-to-use format displays key project tasks, start and end dates, task duration, and corresponding task bars that update with inevitable project changes. Customize taskbar colors to differentiate between roles, teams, or other categories in a visually organized way.
Smartsheet is a cloud-based platform that allows teams and organizations to plan, manage, and report on projects, helping you move faster and achieve more. See Smartsheet in action.
IT Project Gantt Chart Template
Download IT Project Gantt Chart Template – Google SheetsThis template is intended for the IT project manager who oversees the planning, role assigning, and scheduling of a company’s IT initiatives. Simply add project tasks, milestones, and key dates, and then color-code task bars according to task ownership. Task duration and corresponding task bars will update automatically according to the dates you input, providing a visual display of team progress and the project’s overall status.
Construction Project Timeline Template
Download Construction Project Timeline Template – Google SheetsThis construction project timeline template comes pre-built with standard construction tasks, from demo prep to wrap-up. Easily modify project activities according to your needs, and then add start dates and end dates and watch as task duration and corresponding task bars populate automatically. This template provides project visibility at both high-level and task-level views.
Scrum Project Management Gantt Chart Template
Download Scrum Project Management Gantt Chart Template – Google SheetsThis customizable template is intended for project managers and Scrum masters and comes with a built-in burndown chart to ensure your next project stays on schedule. Use this template to help facilitate sprint planning, progress monitoring, and task ownership at both the main task and subtask levels. Duration and color-coded task bars will auto-populate as you enter key dates.
Agile Project Plan Template
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Specify the project deliverable, include a scope statement, and track overall progress with this Agile project plan template. This feature-based template allows your team to determine the priority of functionalities for development in current and upcoming iterations. This template also allows you to select role assignments, choose deadlines, and track activity status to ensure that your Agile project stays organized and delivers value to key stakeholders.
Annual Project Timeline Template
Download Annual Project Timeline Template – Excel
This annual timeline template provides a high-level view of key project events, activities, and milestones over the course of a year. Simply add activity dates and details to easily view upcoming events at a glance, prioritize tasks, and ensure timely completion of project deliverables.
Project Deadline Calendar Template
Download Project Deadline Calendar Template
This customizable project deadline calendar template is designed for the project planning professional in charge of delegating, scheduling, and tracking the overall progress of a basic or complex project. This template allows you to add project tasks, role assignments, and deadlines, and also make time-sensitive decisions at each phase of a project.
Monthly Marketing Calendar Template
Download Excel Monthly Marketing Calendar Template — Excel
Use this marketing calendar template to plan out multiple event-specific tasks on a month-by-month basis. This template enables you to assign activity roles and important dates, and also includes plenty of space for comments. Use the template to keep each marketing event organized and successful, from planning to completion.
Yearly Project Planning Calendar with Notes
Download Excel Yearly Project Planning Calendar with Notes — Excel
This yearly calendar template enables you to plan out multiple projects and events in a calendar format that is easy to scan and modify. With holidays already included, this calendar is ready for you to schedule out crucial project tasks, events, and due dates, and also includes additional space for notes. To see more monthly and yearly calendar options for download, check out these 15 free monthly calendar templates.
Weekly Project Planner Template with Notes
Download Excel Weekly Project Planner Template with Notes — Excel
This weekly project planner makes it easy for you to plan out project activities on a daily and weekly basis throughout the year. Simply add the planner start date at the top of the template; then add important tasks and notes to ensure that your team starts and completes project activities on schedule.
Calendar timeline templates
Calendars are fantastic for laying out both personal and professional timelines. Depending on how much detail you want to use, you can plan out your milestone events with brief overviews of each month, or actively plan out how you’ll spend your time with specific events and deadlines.
The main limiting factor for calendar timeline templates is the format you use. Programs such as those in Office 365‘s suite (Microsoft Word and Powerpoint) can do a serviceable job of layout out a calendar, but when it comes to customization or any reasonable level of detail, you’ll quickly be left behind with awkward editing and broken formatting.
Apps such as Google Calendar, however, allow you to plan out milestones, tasks, projects, and events in great detail and with huge amounts of flexibility, at the cost of taking a little extra time to set up.
12-Month timeline – Microsoft
Kicking us off we have a couple of templates from Microsoft, starting with a basic timeline template for Microsoft Word which splits the year into months with a small space to describe what’s happening in each. Obviously, you’ll have to edit the year, but if you’re planning high-level goals which can be summed up in a single sentence this isn’t a bad choice.
If, however, you’re looking to plan out your timeline in any kind of detail, you’re better off using one of the other options in this post. Word makes it awkward to edit anything that isn’t plain text, and so I would advise against trying to space out the months to cram more detail in – chances are that will break the format.
Click here to download this template.
Project Planning Timeline – Microsoft
This timeline for PowerPoint is much more akin to a traditional calendar, letting you make more detailed noted on a day-to-day basis. This template also comes with a couple of sample milestone placeholders to show you how you could use it to plan out your projects or goals (which is especially handy if you don’t have a set project proposal template).
While this template is much more versatile than those in Word, there are still limits to what you can do while sticking to this calendar layout. You can still only write a sentence for each day, and while that will cover most situations, it won’t allow you to go into any detail or describe more than one event.
Click here to download this template.
Printing your own calendar
If you’re organizing your time using a calendar I’d highly recommend using Google Calendar. Serving as part of the Google Suite, Google Calendar is a free app which lets you create events with which you can organize your time effectively. From daily routines and deadlines to overarching goals and projects, you can color code your events and stack them to overlap to dedicate your time to the things that need doing.
Better still, you can print off your calendar for free to serve as your very own timeline template. Admittedly, if you edit your calendar then you’ll need to reprint it, but if you use the app to track your tasks in the moment and then only print off copies for your records you’ll never need to worry about whether you’re using an outdated version.
Click here to learn how to print off your calendar.
Linear timeline templates
Linear timeline templates are more milestone-based than calendars, as they are only really viable for showing longer periods of time with minor details. However, they are also far less reliant on specific dates, making them more versatile for projects and goals which don’t have set deadlines or are still in the planning stage.
These timelines are also fantastic for summarizing a project to your teammates or manager, since the flow of one task to another makes it much easier to understand how everything will fit together and progress.
In other words, if you’re less certain of specific dates or want to present a bitesize version of your timeline in a way that’s visually easy to understand, use one of these linear timeline templates.
Business Timeline – Microsoft
Another official Microsoft template for Word, this timeline has many of the same pros and cons as their calendar template for the same program. If you’re looking to give a brief overview of each month over a sentence or two then this timeline is easy to customize and displays its information clearly enough (especially for the ease of use with everything set up for you).
If you’re looking to customize the template beyond the flavor text for each month, it’s not really worth the effort. Again, Word is horrible to use when editing anything other than plain text, so if you need to give a more detailed timeline overview, you’re best using a different template.
Otherwise, it’s easy to use and gets the job done. What more can you ask for?
Click here to download this template.
Basic Chevron Process – Microsoft
I’ve already said that linear timelines are great for presenting milestones or task flows to others, and this chevron template doubles down on that by being a PowerPoint file.
Although a little basic, this timeline is a great starting point for a presentation where you need to show a timeline to others. It’s not overly pretty, and anyone viewing it will probably know that you’ve taken a template and customized it, but for a basic presentation aid you couldn’t ask for a better starting point.
Much like the Word timeline template though, this one is severely lacking in customization options beyond changing the basic bullet points below each month. PowerPoint makes it much easier to edit visual elements (like the individual chevrons) than if you were working on a Word document, but the best way to give more detail to your timeline is to create separate slides to break down each month of your timeline further.
Click here to download this template.
Bubble Chart Timeline Template – Vertex42
Vertex42‘s bubble chart timeline is a little different, as it generates its timeline and visuals from two graphs you can edit in Excel. This is a great template for if you want to add a little flare to your timeline and are willing to have a bit of a tinker with the tables provided to get the results you’re after.
With options to change the number, size, and contents of each bubble, along with the X and Y axis positions and the message which springs off each, this is perfect for if you’re looking to produce a more traditional timeline which won’t bore whoever’s viewing it to death. If, however, you’re looking to split a project into tasks, the lack of room for detailed text is a major drawback.
Click here to download this template.
Timeline Template – Template Lab
Template Lab‘s PowerPoint template is a cross between a traditional linear timeline and a project-driven one, in that it uses the linear timeline to give the time scale, and then supplements it with bars showing how long the various phases of a project will take. This makes it useful for managing a team, since everyone can visualize how far along a phase they are and how much time they have let to complete their tasks.
Once again, you won’t be able to give a massive amount of detail for any given phase or task, but for presenting an overview of a project and breaking it down into actionable milestones this is a great visual aid. Plus, with it being PowerPoint, there’s nothing stopping you from expanding on each phase in a new slide.
Click here to download this template.
Timeline Infographic – Microsoft
One of the brighter timeline templates in our lineup, this entry from Microsoft has all of the same pros and cons as other PowerPoint timelines, but its design leans more towards being a visual piece than heavy practical use.
With the scope of the timeline spanning several years and the limited space for more than six highlights, this timeline is more useful for presenting something like the company’s history or milestones than anything at a lower level. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – being able to show the major events in your company’s history is a powerful tool to use with both customers and potential investors – but that does mean this timeline template is less useful in your day-to-day activities.
If you’re looking to summarize your major victories or progress points to a specific person or in a shared document (like an employee handbook) then this is a great start.
Click here to download this template.
Circle Accent Timeline – Microsoft
While it’s not as “professional” as many of the other templates here, this PowerPoint template is a nifty little timeline to split up your week into color-coded tasks at a glance.
Although it’s currently set out as a study/lesson schedule, you could easily swap this to have your tasks prioritized and recognizable at a glance. Instead of even having to read your text your could know that (for example) on Monday you have to research a blog post, write another, and edit a third from the color and position of the following circles.
Alternatively, you could use it as a company-wide display of deadlines or meeting times for different teams, with each team having a set color. This could help increase accountability and compliance, since everyone will know when each others’ deadlines are, and if any teams are collaborating it will be even clearer when they need to have their tasks completed to hand off to the other team.
Click here to download this template.
Project Milestones Timeline – Microsoft
This Excel timeline from Microsoft stands out primarily for its color scheme. Having a striking white-on-black presentation with blue milestones will draw the eye of anyone skimming past it, while the milestones themselves are easily customizable. Changing the data in the table below the timeline will automatically update the graph (the wonders of an Excel formula), making it incredibly easy to customize both the name and position of each point on the line.
However, the reverse color scheme comes with a big downside. As Ogilvy tells us in his core marketing tips, having white text on a black background is naturally harder to read than the reverse, so you’ll want to avoid putting too much detail into your timeline. It’s eye-catching, but not conducive to easy reading.
Click here to download this template.
Project timeline templates
These are templates which focus on breaking down a project into its individual elements (and that don’t fit into a “linear”, “calendar”, or “spreadsheet” format). As such, these are best used when you’re looking to break down a specific project without focusing on timings.
For example, if you’re making a project proposal and want to suggest a timeline in terms of what the work cycle will look like, how long a stage might take (without set timings), and how the work will be distributed, these are the templates for you.
Line Chart Template – Slide Hunter
Slide Hunter‘s PowerPoint template focuses entirely on breaking up the amount of work behind every stage of a project. A single progress bar is split up into colored segments to show the amount of work for each, while a small description of what each color stands for is shown below.
As mentioned earlier, this project work timeline is best used to support a project request form and show the distribution of work in what you’re putting forward.
Click here to download this template.
Scrum Process timeline – Slide Hunter
Once again from Slide Hunter, this Scrum timeline is a high-level overview of the process which is best used as part of a presentation. Although at first it might seem too generic to be useful, if you’re presenting a product to either begin work or as part of a postmortem, this is a great way to summarize both how your Scrum operates and how long each cycle will take (or took, if you’re analyzing a completed project).
You could run this as part of your daily Scrum (since there’s a small space to fill in your daily tasks), the huge visual elements make this much more suited to giving a snapshot of the process in a presentation. For an actionable process which you can use to track your daily Scrums, it’s much more effective to create your own template.
In other words, this timeline is great when you’re asked to present your team’s duties or explain them to someone unfamiliar with your work.
Click here to download this template.
Spreadsheet timeline templates
For those of you who love crunching large data sets and organizing yourself with detailed spreadsheets, these are the perfect timeline templates.
From organizing the elements of your projects in basic rows and columns to tracking your data in tables which then automatically update graphs, these entries all focus on letting you lay out every detailed element which makes up your projects and timeline.
Timeline template – California State University Northridge
California State University Northridge isn’t what sprang to mind when I set out to find the best timeline templates, but with a little tweaking, their historical timeline is a great base for laying out your tasks and how they overlap.
Much like other spreadsheet timeline templates, a graph is generated based on the data you put into a table, including the name of each point (or task) on the timeline, their star point, and end point. However, the graph generated is this time on a separate sheet to the data table, meaning that you don’t have to awkwardly scroll past the table every time you want to check or present the graph.
Whether you’re creating a personal timeline to see your workload over the coming months, showing when various teams will be working on a project, or just breaking down a project into bite-size tasks, I’d highly recommend giving this spreadsheet template a try.
Click here to download this template.
Google Sheets project timeline – Smartsheet
Although visually this is much more basic that the previous spreadsheets, this Smartsheet template is a dream for anyone looking to delve into the data behind their projects.
What it lacks by not having a graph, this spreadsheet makes up for in the various columns for details like your tasks’ names, priority, start and end dates, status, description, deliverables, and more. Although it’s admittedly a “timeline” in a fairly loose sense, the power this gives you with planning your projects and predicting its timings is massive.
Whether you’re looking for a way to present a project proposal with a large amount of supporting data or you’re just looking to effectively track your projects as time goes by, this is a fantastic choice if you’re not too fussed about visuals.
Click here to get this template.
Long-term Gantt Chart – Vertex42
This timeline template is fantastic for anyone who wants to write everything in a single spreadsheet. Like the other spreadsheet timelines here, this lets you break down your projects into smaller tasks and automatically generates a graph to represent the time they’ll take. However, Vertex42’s Gantt chart template has a graph which covers every week spanning a two-year period, meaning that you can easily add new rows to keep expanding upon this single template for that entire time.
If you’re set on creating a single, united spreadsheet to track your projects and the time each task took to complete (or to predict the time spent in advance), this template has you covered.
Click here to get this template.
Conclusion
Having a good online calendar that you can plan your daily or weekly schedule is important for any student or anyone that has a job. It will make sure you stay organized and productive. In todays rapidly developing economy, ots never too late to begin.
4-Week Project Timeline Template
Download 4-Week Project Timeline Template
Save time when building out your next project plan (in either weekly or monthly increments) with this 4-week project timeline template. Add project tasks and due dates, assign roles, and track activity progress to promote team accountability and ensure your next project stays on schedule.
Project Schedule Template
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Excel | Google Sheets | Smartsheet
This customizable project scheduling template offers a multi-phase approach to help you develop a simple or advanced project plan. Add essential project notes, including information on scheduling, budgeting, resources, and project risks, to provide the visibility necessary to make critical and timely decisions.
Project Calendar Template
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This project calendar template caters to the project manager who needs to see delegated project tasks, milestones, and key deadlines at a glance. Utilize the color-coded key at the bottom of the template to easily locate designated activities according to stakeholders. This template helps you track progress from start to finish.
Basic Gantt Chart Template
Download Basic Gantt Chart Template
Plan out each phase of your next project using this pre-built Gantt chart template. Schedule out project tasks, subtasks, activity ownership, deadlines, completion status, and more. This Gantt chart provides a visual overview of both granular and high-level activity progress, which allows you to easily communicate critical project details to your team and stakeholders.
Advanced Gantt Chart Template
Download Advanced Gantt Chart Template – Google SheetsThis advanced Gantt chart template captures all main project tasks and subtasks, due dates, actual completion dates, and deadline variances. There is also space to denote task ownership, progress status, task dependencies, and key project milestone details, and the task bars will update automatically as you make modifications.
Excel Project Timeline – Smartsheet
Smartsheet‘s first entry on this list lets you break up the timeline for an individual project in Excel and color code your tasks based on the phase they’re in. It leans heavily on visual elements rather than text, which makes it great for overviewing your project as a whole, but not so good for explaining your tasks or project beyond basic names and labels.
It’s also very easy to edit – task names can be edited and the bars which show the length of the task can be dragged to increase or decrease their size. You can’t, however, easily edit the number of tasks in each phase without giving yourself extra editing work. If you’re okay with the project task list as it is displayed then that’s not a problem, but adding new rows to your phases messes up elements such as the bar showing the current date.
Click here to download this template.
Project Schedule – Vertex42
Vertex42 enters this list again with a solid project timeline spreadsheet – this file is actually a few templates combined, each with different time scales to let you tackle your projects in the appropriate amount of detail. One version is for a weekly schedule, one for a monthly, and there’s also a sample version to demonstrate how to set it up effectively.
All versions of this template are easy to edit due to just being a color-coded spreadsheet, but they’re visual enough to see the length of all of your tasks at a glance. There’s even an extra column to add notes for each task, making it much more useful for items that need a little extra explanation.
Click here to download this template.
Gantt Chart Template – Smartsheet
This Gantt chart timeline template is great for organizing your Excel projects with colorful visual elements. By filling in the tasks you have and their start and end dates, this Smartsheet template automatically figures out how long the task will take and updates a graph to represent that time visually.
As with many others on this list, there sadly isn’t any room to expand on the task beyond a name (you can’t note down any detail at all, aside from creating a new sheet or linking to extra resources). However, if you want a quick and easy way to visualize your task or project list and how the items overlap, this is a great choice.
Click here to download this template.