Excel can work as a timesheet, a simple project timeline, or both. You can start from Microsoft templates, or build your own sheet with basic time formulas and a chart-style timeline.
Does this affect you?
Use this for Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2021, and Excel 2019 on Windows or Mac when you need to track work hours, calculate totals, or map tasks across dates.
Build a timesheet with automatic totals
Use a template for speed, or build a small table yourself.
- For the fastest setup, open File > New in Excel and search for timesheet. Choose a weekly or biweekly template and click Create.
- To build your own, create columns for Date, Time In, Time Out, Break, and Total Hours.
- Format Time In and Time Out as time values from Format Cells > Time.
- In Total Hours, use a formula like =(C2-B2)*24-D2, where C2 is Time Out, B2 is Time In, and D2 is the break in hours.
- Copy the formula down for each day.
- At the bottom, use SUM on the Total Hours column for the weekly total.
The *24 matters because Excel stores times as fractions of a day. Multiplying by 24 turns the result into decimal hours.
Build a project timeline
Choose a quick visual timeline for a report, or a working task schedule for project tracking.
- For a simple visual, open Insert > SmartArt, choose Process, and pick a timeline layout. Add each milestone and date.
- For a working schedule, create columns for Task, Start Date, End Date, and Duration.
- Calculate Duration with End Date minus Start Date, and format the result as Number.
- To make a basic Gantt-style view, use a stacked bar chart with Start Date as the first series and Duration as the second.
- Format the Start Date series with No Fill so the duration bars appear to begin on the correct dates.
More control
Track overtime
Add a daily overtime column with a formula such as IF(total hours is greater than 8, total hours minus 8, otherwise 0). For weekly overtime, compare the weekly total with 40 hours.
Handle overnight shifts
If a shift crosses midnight, simple subtraction can go negative. Use a MOD-based formula such as MOD(end time minus start time, 1)*24 so Excel wraps the calculation around the day correctly.
Save your layout as a template
After building a clean sheet, use File > Save As and choose Excel Template (.xltx). Opening that template later creates a fresh copy while preserving the blank original.
Share with a team
Store the workbook in OneDrive or SharePoint and use the Share button when multiple people need to view or update the same schedule.
Sources
- Microsoft Support – Create a timesheet in Excel (2025)
- Microsoft Support – Insert a SmartArt graphic to create a timeline (2025)
- Microsoft Support – Calculate the difference between two times (2024)