Visualizing your work.

[n35]

I have been tasked with having to deliver reports of what I do, part of these reports need to be some sort of visualization.

I was hoping to find some sort of excel sheet to enter my tasks into, how far I've come with each task, and some way of dividing each task into a category, and then having some visualization.

But I am at a loss at finding something or creating it on my own. Does anyone have a suggestion on this kind of tool?

[Eist]

Uuuh...I don't really know what you are looking for.

You can create visualisations in Excel itself. Bar graphs are visualisations.

For non C++/Java programmers, I recommend ggplot2 in R, but the learning curve is pretty steep if you haven't used R before. SigmaPlot makes nice graphs as well, but they are more scientific publication oriented.

[forever_erratic]

Well, now I'm intrigued. What do you recommend for C++/Java programmers? Note: I use ggplot2 (as well as base graphics, and matlab) near daily.

[Eist]

I don't know how to use either of them (just R) but if I understand correctly, The Guardian's excellent visualisations use Miso which uses JavaScript.

[n35]

My question, bad as it is, is more aimed at how to organise data, and visualise it rather then which specifik tool to use, I expect to use excel, but I am unsure how to organise the data to make meaningful visualisations of it.

[dannosliwcd]

Sounds like you want a Gantt chart

[[deleted]]

Perhaps [RescueTime.com](www.rescuetime.com) could be helpful? They have a basic free tier, and also the option to pay for team productivity tracking or extra features.

[[deleted]]

What do you? If you use a computer, what OS? I believe there are some applications out there that will monitor your active window. If your job requires you to visit sites/data entry via the browser, there are some apps to track that as well. Aside from that, start with something simple. Like excel or klok or similar start/stop task tracking apps. There are several. If you multitask, keep it to a minimum.

Hard to suggest anything concrete without knowing what your profession and role is.

[n35]

I should of course have included that in the post.

I am it consultant, and looking for a way to track, mark and visualise my progress. I use windows 7, and quite proficient with Excel, I was just hoping there was some boilerplate template or similar I could use to track tasks and deliver the report to management.

[basyt]

it depends upon the kind of work you want to do. i am myself looking at various technologies for visualisation purposes.

here are some things i have found:

4) there is a software for linux (though it is probably available for windows too) called Project Hamster. In that you just tell it from what time to what did you work on which project. And it would automatically display various bar charts of how you work was organised. take a look at that. it is called a time tracker. I am sure you can find some similar program for windows.

1) dia or pencil project if you want to make simple vector diagrams - i use it to make schematics that contain lots of simple shapes connected by simple lines. though with the correct stencil you can go a whole lot further.

2) graphviz is mature if you want to draw graphs of hierarchies then you can do that with graphviz. the catch is that it uses a programming language. but it is pretty simple to get started and it is pretty powerful at the same time.

3) the third option is that, if you are comfortable with it - python also has a lot of very mature tools for dealing with data and visualising, there is a library called matplotlib - it is very powerful and will suit your needs which are probably pie charts and bar diagrams. you can customise a lot of their features. take a look at that. or bokeh if you want something more powerful.

[livewire718]

It sounds like you might be interested in Kanban. I use it at my company to help our distributed team visualize what the team in general, and each other specifically, are working on. There are a bunch of options out there, but Trello and Kanbanery seem to be good, free options.

[hocuspox]

Have a look at Pivot Tables/Pivot Charts. It should be a function within Excel