How I Track My Online Courses in Google Sheets (and Actually Finish Them)

I bought 14 online courses last year. I finished 5. That's a 36% completion rate, which sounds bad until you look at the industry average – it's somewhere around 10-15%. So I'm beating the curve. But I'm still wasting money on courses I never touch.

I started tracking courses because I wanted to see the pattern. When do I drop off? Which categories do I actually finish? Is there a price point where I'm more likely to follow through? Turns out, a spreadsheet answers all of that.

The online course graveyard

Everyone has one. A pile of courses bought during sales, started with enthusiasm and abandoned after week two. The platform dashboards don't help – they show you a progress bar at 12% and nothing else. No trends, no spending total, no way to compare across platforms.

I had courses scattered across four different platforms. Each one had its own progress tracker, its own interface, its own way of measuring "completion." None of them talked to each other. I had no idea what my total spending was until I pulled the receipts.

What I track for each course

Every course gets a row with:

• Title and instructor – the basics
• Category and platform – so I can see where I spend the most and what I gravitate toward
• Total hours and hours completed – this drives the progress bar
• Status – Not Started, Taking, Finished, On Hold or Dropped
• Cost – what I actually paid, not the "original price" the platform shows
• Start date and goal date – optional, but useful for pace tracking
• Rating – only after finishing, never before

Updating hours takes about 10 seconds after a study session. I just open the sheet on my phone and bump the number.

Progress bars change behavior

There's something about seeing a visual progress bar that makes you want to fill it. When I can see I'm 72% through a course, the remaining 28% feels achievable. When I'm staring at a platform dashboard that says "Module 7 of 12," the same progress feels abstract.

The on-track indicator helps too. If I set a goal date and I'm behind pace, the spreadsheet tells me. Not in a pushy way – just a quiet "behind" label next to the progress bar. It's enough to make me open the course instead of scrolling through social media.

My completion rate went from 36% to 58% after three months of tracking. I didn't try harder – I just started fewer courses and finished the ones I had open.

The spending data is the real wake-up call

Courses feel cheap individually. $12 here, $30 there, occasionally a $200 bootcamp during a weak moment. But when you add it up across a year, the total is always bigger than you expected.

I spent $840 on courses last year. Of the 14 courses, I dropped 4 without watching more than an hour. That's roughly $200 spent on courses I'll never touch again. Seeing that number made me add a rule: no buying a new course until I finish or drop the ones I'm currently taking.

The per-platform breakdown was interesting too. My highest-rated courses all came from one platform. My most-dropped courses all came from another – the one with the most aggressive sales. Coincidence? Probably not.

Categories tell you what you actually care about

I thought I was a "programming" learner. My category breakdown told a different story – I finish design courses at a 75% rate and programming courses at 25%. I keep buying programming courses because I think I should learn to code. I keep finishing design courses because I actually enjoy them.

That insight alone was worth the tracking effort. I stopped spending money on courses I was "supposed" to take and started spending on courses I'd actually complete.

How I set yearly learning goals

I set three goals each year:

• Courses to finish – not courses to buy, courses to finish. This distinction matters.
• Hours to log – total study time across all courses
• Spending budget – a cap so I stop impulse-buying during flash sales

The dashboard shows monthly pace for each goal. Am I on track to hit 12 finished courses this year? Am I over budget already in March? These questions have answers now instead of guesses.

Practical tips

Use "On Hold" instead of dropping immediately

Sometimes you need a break from a course. "On Hold" lets you pause without the guilt of marking it dropped. If it's still on hold three months later, then drop it. No shame in that – the data just moves it from one bucket to another.

Rate courses only after finishing

First impressions are unreliable. Some courses start slow and get great. Some start with energy and fizzle. Only rate after you've completed it or decided to drop it.

Log the sale price, not the "original" price

Platforms love showing you "was $199, now $14." Your spending tracker should reflect what left your bank account, not the fictional discount.