How to build a progress bar in Notion? Step-by-step tutorial

When you’re working on a project with multiple tasks, sub-tasks, sub-sub-tasks (and beyond), it can be hard to tell how far along you really are. The good news: in Notion, you can build a progress bar that updates automatically as you complete each task.

Let’s build it step by step.

Psssst: if you prefer a video tutorial, you’ll find it at the end of this article. 📹😉

First, create a new database by typing /database.

We’re going to use sub-items, so your projects can be the “parents”, and your tasks can live underneath, on several levels.

To enable that, click Settings in the top right of your database, go to More settings, find Sub-items and turn it on. Choose the Parents and sub-items filter option.

Perfect.

Now that the structure is ready, we’re going to add five properties to the database. Here’s what we need:

1️⃣ A select property

2️⃣ A button property

3️⃣ A rollup property

4️⃣ A formula property

5️⃣ And another formula property

Let’s configure each property.

Click on the property’s name, choose Edit property and add an option called Done. Then rename the property to Status.

Start by renaming the property to Finished.

Go to Edit automation, and change the button label to a simple checkmark so your button looks cleaner.

Then click New action → Edit property → Status → and set it to Done.

Save your changes.

Rename your rollup property to Parent statuses and select:

👉 Relation = Parent item

👉 Property = Formula (it will be renamed to "All statuses" in the next step)

Rename your first formula to All statuses.

Click into any cell in that column, and copy/paste this formula inside:

Rename your second formula property to Progress bar.

Go to Edit property, change the number format to percent and the decimal places to 2 (0 works too).

Make sure to show it as a bar.

Copy/paste this formula inside any cell:

Your progress system is ready.

Now let’s make this actually useful day-to-day. Create a new List view. And in that view, display these properties in this exact order:

1️⃣ Status

2️⃣ Progress bar

3️⃣ Finished

And that’s it.

When you check off finished tasks, each parent item’s progress updates automatically as its sub-tasks are completed. You now have a clear Notion setup to track your projects and your tasks.