This Kanban board template for Google Sheets and Excel lays out your tasks in five columns: Backlog, To-Do, In Progress, Review and Done. The board fills itself from the task list in our project management spreadsheet, and you move a card by changing its Kanban category in that list rather than by dragging it. It suits solo workers and small teams who want a visual board next to their Gantt chart, budget and calendars, all in one file.
What the Kanban Board Template Shows
Every one-off task you enter appears as a card under its Kanban category. The category is its own field on the task, separate from the status. That matters: a card can sit in In Progress while its status says on hold or delayed, which is exactly how stalled work looks in real life.
The board comes with filters for status, priority, person, dates and progress, and you can sort cards by date or by progress. In practice that gives you several boards from one list:
- Filter by person to see one owner’s cards, which is the view to use in a one-to-one.
- Filter by priority to hide everything except high-priority work on a busy day.
- Filter by dates to see only what is due this week.
- Sort by progress to spot the cards that are nearly finished and worth closing first.
Recurring tasks, such as a weekly report or a monthly invoice run, do not appear on the board. They have their own schedule tab, so routine work does not crowd out project cards.
Worked Example: A Three-Person Holiday Launch Board
Maya, Leo and Sam run a small online shop and are preparing its holiday gift guide. This is their task list on Friday, October 30, 2026, with the Kanban category that places each card:
| Task | Owner | Priority | Kanban category | Due | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choose featured products | Maya | High | Done | Oct 28 | 100% |
| Price check on gift bundles | Leo | Medium | Done | Oct 30 | 100% |
| Email announcement draft | Maya | High | Review | Nov 2 | 90% |
| Shipping cutoff banner | Leo | Medium | Review | Nov 2 | 80% |
| Photograph 20 products | Sam | High | In Progress | Nov 3 | 60% |
| Update product descriptions | Sam | High | In Progress | Nov 5 | 30% |
| Build the gift guide page | Leo | High | In Progress | Nov 6 | 50% |
| Set up discount codes | Sam | Low | In Progress | Nov 10 | 10% |
| Write the gift guide intro | Maya | High | To-Do | Nov 6 | 0% |
| Order gift wrap stock | Leo | Medium | To-Do | Nov 9 | 0% |
| Schedule social posts | Sam | Medium | To-Do | Nov 12 | 0% |
| Research a packaging supplier | Leo | Medium | Backlog | Dec 4 | 0% |
| Draft January sale ideas | Maya | Low | Backlog | Dec 11 | 0% |
Filtered by person, the board breaks down like this:
| Column | Cards | Maya | Leo | Sam | High priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backlog | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| To-Do | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| In Progress | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Review | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Done | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Total | 13 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 |
Three things jump out. Sam has three cards in progress, one of them low priority. With a limit of two in progress per person, the discount codes card goes back to To-Do until the photos are done. Filtering to high priority leaves three cards in progress, and sorting them by date puts the photos (due November 3) first, then the descriptions and the gift guide page. Finally, two cards are waiting in Review, both due Monday. Review is where work stalls quietly, so Maya and Leo clear it before anyone pulls a new card from To-Do.
How to Set Up the Kanban Board
- On the setup tab, check the Kanban categories and add your people, priorities and statuses.
- Add your projects on the project manager tab.
- Enter tasks on the variable tasks tab with a project, owner, priority, dates, progress and Kanban category. New ideas start in Backlog.
- Open the Kanban board tab and set the filters you need: person, priority, status, dates or progress. Sort by date or progress.
- To move a card, change its Kanban category in the task list and the board updates. When a card reaches Done, set its status to completed as well, so the Gantt chart and calendars agree with the board.
- Once a week, go through the Backlog: move what comes next into To-Do and delete what no longer matters.
The Kanban Method in Brief
Kanban rests on three simple rules:
- Make all the work visible. If a task lives only in someone’s head or inbox, it cannot be balanced against everything else.
- Limit work in progress. Cap the cards per person or per column, then finish or unblock one before starting another. Our personal kanban guide covers column design, WIP limits and three example boards.
- Pull, do not push. A card moves into In Progress when someone has room, not when someone else wants it started.
A board shows what is moving, not what matters most. To choose which backlog cards earn a place in To-Do, use a method from how to prioritize tasks, or tick important and urgent on each task and let the Eisenhower matrix template sort them. Routine work that never leaves the list belongs in a schedule, as described in how to manage recurring tasks. When you need to report on where a project stands, how to track project progress covers percent complete and status colors.
Build Your Own Kanban Board in Google Sheets or Excel
You need Google Sheets or Excel for Microsoft 365 (or Excel 2021 and later), because the board uses FILTER.
The task list. On a sheet named Tasks, set up column A: Task, B: Owner, C: Priority, D: Category, E: Due, F: Progress. Add a dropdown to column D with your five column names: Data > Data validation in Google Sheets, Data > Data Validation > List in Excel.
The board. On a sheet named Board, type Backlog, To-Do, In Progress, Review and Done in A1:E1. In A2, enter the formula below and copy it across to E2. Each card shows the task with its owner in brackets.
- Google Sheets:
=IFERROR(FILTER(Tasks!$A$2:$A$200&" ("&Tasks!$B$2:$B$200&")", Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1), "") - Excel:
=FILTER(Tasks!$A$2:$A$200&" ("&Tasks!$B$2:$B$200&")", Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1, "")
Excel’s FILTER takes a third argument for what to show when nothing matches. Google Sheets returns an error for an empty column instead, hence the IFERROR.
Sorted by due date. To list task names in date order, filter all five columns, sort by the fifth (Due) and keep the first:
- Google Sheets:
=IFERROR(INDEX(SORT(FILTER(Tasks!$A$2:$E$200, Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1), 5, TRUE), 0, 1), "") - Excel:
=IFERROR(INDEX(SORT(FILTER(Tasks!$A$2:$E$200, Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1), 5, 1), 0, 1), "")
One person’s board. Type a name in H1 and add a second condition. Google Sheets takes it as an extra argument, FILTER(range, Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1, Tasks!$B$2:$B$200=$H$1), while Excel multiplies the conditions: FILTER(range, (Tasks!$D$2:$D$200=A$1)*(Tasks!$B$2:$B$200=$H$1), "").
A WIP check, the same in both apps: =COUNTIFS(Tasks!$D$2:$D$200, "In Progress", Tasks!$B$2:$B$200, "Sam") counts Sam’s cards in progress. Put one per person under the board and you will see an overload before it becomes a missed date.
Who This Kanban Template Suits
It works well for:
- freelancers and solo workers who want to see their whole week of work in one view;
- small teams already working in Google Sheets, where a shared copy keeps everyone on the same board;
- anyone who wants the board, the Gantt chart and the project budget to come from a single task list.
It is not the right fit if your team wants to drag cards, comment on them, attach files or trigger automations when a card moves. Dedicated Kanban tools do that, and our comparison of spreadsheets and project management software lays out when that is worth paying for.
Before adding a sixth column, run the five you have for two weeks. If cards pile up in one of them, fix the flow into that column first; a new column usually just gives the pile a new name.