Summary

The undefined website presents a comprehensive 2023 Medium Writing Progress Tracker, a Google Sheets template designed to help writers set goals, track submissions, and monitor their writing progress on Medium, including a database of over 200 active publications and a dashboard for performance analytics.

Abstract

The 2023 Medium Writing Progress Tracker is an advanced template for Medium writers, combining the functionalities of a 30-Day Writing Challenge Progress Tracker and a Medium Publications Overview Template. It serves as a planning and tracking tool for content creation, word count, publication submissions, and top writer tags. The template includes a "Pubs🏡" tab with a curated list of active Medium publications, complete with submission guidelines and response times. The "Writing Progress📈" tab allows writers to log their daily writing activities, draft URLs, word counts, and submission statuses. Lastly, the "Dashboard🚀" tab provides an automated overview of writing stats, including total word count, submission outcomes, and a tracker for Medium's Top Writer Tags.

Opinions

The author emphasizes the importance of organization and structure for writers with a "scattered brain," suggesting that the tracker is particularly beneficial for those who thrive with systematic approaches.
The tracker is praised for its ability to streamline the writing process, from drafting to publication, by providing a centralized location for all relevant information and activities.
The author values the community aspect of writing on Medium, as evidenced by the inclusion of publications from various sources, including Medium Staff lists, Daily Digest mailings, and user comments.
The author advocates for regular engagement with publication editors, suggesting that writers should check in and follow up on their submissions to increase their chances of acceptance.
The tracker is designed to be user-friendly, with features like checkboxes for tracking writer status and submission dates, as well as automated calculations for response times and writing statistics.
The author encourages writers to personalize the tracker by adding their own publications and tags, demonstrating a commitment to customization and adaptability based on individual writing goals.
The author expresses a personal interest in achieving Top Writer status and sees the tracker as a tool to help not only themselves but also other writers to reach this milestone.

2023 Medium Writing Progress Tracker — With 149 + 55 Publications, Word Counter & Top Writer Tags Tracker

Set yourself up for success on the platform with this writing tracker template

When you set a writing output goal or attempt a writing challenge, a progress tracker can help you hit your goals.

And if you have a scattered brain like me, you need all the help you can get. Tracking life in spreadsheets is my chosen method to cope with and thrive in chaos.

This 2023 Medium Writing Progress Tracker is a mashup of 2 templates I made previously:

Use it to:

Plan out your content
Save draft links
Write out headlines
Gleam at your ever-increasing total word count
Keep an overview of relevant publications
Track your publication story submissions

All in one overview.

➡️ Ready? Click this link to get a copy of the template.

Edit (14–1–23): I added 40 publications to the template that I found in this list. The publications touch the topics spirituality, religion, programming, JavaScript, AI & ML, data analytics, UX, InfoSec, sexuality and erotica, maths, and language learning.

Edit (16–1–23): Added another 15 pubs I found in the comment section next to this list by Medium Staff to my spreadsheet template. The spreadsheet now contains 204 active pubs.

Walkthrough of the 2023 Medium Writing Progress Tracker

Let’s take a look at the 3 tabs, one by one.

Prefer a video walkthrough? Here you go:

“Pubs🏡” tab

The Pubs🏡 tab houses a compilation of:

All publications from the Medium Publications Overview Template
Publications from KiKi Walter’s Listings Guide to Medium Publications
Publications I came across in the Daily Digest mailings
This list by Medium Staff
And the comment section next to the above list

I checked which pubs are active today and open to new writers and story submissions. Then, I updated the spreadsheet accordingly.

How the “Pubs🏡” tab is set up

Column A extracts the first letter of the publication name in column B, so you can find pubs like you would in an address book.
Column B links directly to the pub’s homepage.
Column C tells you what the pub is about.
Column D links to the pub’s submission guidelines.
In column E, I wrote out points from the submission guidelines that help you get your piece ready for submission faster, such as story length or what not to do.
Tick the checkboxes in column G once you requested to become a writer. Then, in column F, add the date of your request. This way, you’ll have a rough idea of when you can follow up with the pub editor — if that’s at all allowed.
(Hacker voice:) “I’m in.” Check the tickboxes in Column H once you’re accepted into a pub as a writer.
Column I shows tags either mentioned in the submission guidelines or derived from headers and content on the publication page.
Column J shows how long pub editors need to check your story. If there is an indication of how much time they need, you’ll find this in the submission guidelines.

Two important points:

Did you request to be added as a writer? Check-in with the publication regularly. It can be that publication editors leave you a private note, reply to your comment, or send you an email back. As soon as you’re added as a writer, you’ll be able to select the publication from the list. When writing your draft, go to the 3 dots > Add to publication > Select pub from the list > Select and continue. And: check the box on the “Pubs🏡” tab in column H. You’re then able to select this pub from the dropdown menu in the “Writing Progress📈” tab in columns M and N.
Want to add pubs of your own to the “Pubs🏡” tab? There’s space for 50 publications. Currently, these fields are hidden so they don’t obstruct the view. Click on either of the tiny triangles on rows 1 or 52 to unhide hidden rows. Add your pub’s information. Then, click on the grey rectangle in the top left corner between 1 and A > right click on column A > Sort sheet A to Z > Select empty rows > Right-click + Hide rows.

Click on either of the triangles to unhide hidden rows

How to populate the “Writing Progress📈” tab

Column B: Press command + semicolon ; to enter today’s date.
Column C: Automatically shows the month abbreviated. Please do not adjust this column: columns K-V on the Dashboard count tags based on this abbreviation.
Column D: Add here the draft URL once you have one.
Column E: Tick the box once the draft is done.
Column F: Write here your story headline.
Column G: When your piece is 100% done and ready to be published, select all text in your Medium editor to see the total word count. Add the total word count in column G.
Columns H-L: Select a top writer tag from the dropdown. Or, add publication-specific tags as stated in the submission guidelines.

Column M: Select a pub you’re considering submitting your story to.
Column N: The actual pub you’ve submitted to.
Column O: Story submission date. Shortcut: Command/Ctrl + ; for today’s date.
Column P: Enter the date you receive a reply from the pub’s editors.
Column Q: Updates automatically and shows how many days lapsed between the date you submitted your piece and when a publication editor replied.
Column R: Select accepted, rejected, or pending.

Tick the checkbox in column S once your piece is published, and enter your story’s publishing date and story URL in the final two columns.

The “Dashboard🚀” tab

The dashboard is fully automated and shows you your most important stats:

Your total word count
The distributions of accepted vs. rejected and pending pieces
How many times you’ve submitted a story for consideration
And how many days until the end of the year, or a different date, as specified by you.

What’s new? The Topics tracker. You can spot how your topic frequency affects your chances of getting this badge of honor. Thanks to Kristina God for sharing the list of tags eligible for Top Writer Status.

Want to track more tags? There’s space in fields J76-J123 to add your topics of choice.

I haven’t actively hunted for Top Writer Tags— yet. Like many of you, I also want the bragging rights and to prove my ideas worthy and valuable enough to read. This overview will help to determine whether I’m doing it right.

Eventually, you or I can expand this template with bar charts showing:

The total number of words written per month
The total number of stories written per month

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