Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you wish it was easier to stay organized and track your progress on the road to monetization and beyond? Well, I got a set of tools for you, and the best part is I'm giving them away for free. You see, as a new content creator myself, I understand the challenges of growing a successful channel. That's why over the past month I've spent hundreds of hours researching and developing these tools. They each use Google Sheets, and they are exactly what I'm using to stay organized, track my progress, and plan my own content. So stick around, we'll jump over to the computer, and I'll show you exactly how these tools can help you as well.

The YouTube Toolbox is a free set of tools that I designed to help organize and monetize my own YouTube channel. They're designed to be used with Google Sheets and may, from time to time, be updated as time allows or issues arise. Now, the toolbox is made up of three tools. These include a progress tracker, a monetization journal, and a content calendar. Before I continue, as I go through these slides, if you are already familiar with the information being presented, then feel free to use timestamps that are provided to jump ahead.

The progress tracker is designed to track your progress with watchtime hours, subscribers, and top 10 videos for watchtime hours. The overall progress is shown here. Below that is a growth chart with a trend line. Next to that is the calculation showing the total hours needed. Then that estimate is used here to calculate the number of videos needed and the number of weeks until you reach your goal based on that data.

Here is the number of hours gained over the past set number of days with the ability to tally a custom range. At the bottom, this shows the number of hours that are expiring and will no longer count toward your ability to get monetized.

Next, we track subscribers. Here is the overall progress. Here is the chart with the trend line. Here are the stats showing the number of subscribers needed to reach your goal, the estimated number of videos to likely get the subscribers that you want based on the average gain per video, and the average number of weeks based on your average weekly growth rate.

This is the top 10 videos dashboard. Here you can see that it pulls in the thumbnails YouTube has on file for the videos. These metrics come from the data imported from the YouTube Studio. If you don't select the metrics when exporting the data from YouTube, then it won't be available here.

This allows you to sort the videos by metric. Currently, we have selected net subscribers, which is why it is highlighted here. For the progress tracker to function accurately, the data you export from YouTube Studio video needs to be for the lifetime of the channel.

When you successfully export the data, it should look something like this. If you right-click here, it will highlight all of the exported data, and a menu will appear. From this menu, select Copy. The menu will disappear, and all of the data will be placed into memory.

Now, select the Channel tab here. Then right-click here again, which will again highlight all of the data, and the same menu will appear as before. Only this time, select Paste. As soon as the data is pasted into the channel data tab, all of the previous features are made possible, and the calculations are updated.

Then, if you click on the Video Data tab at the bottom, the data is sorted and presented in an organized manner. The video ID is used here to create a URL for each video that will take you to that video on YouTube. Here, you can see that it has also imported the video thumbnails.

The monetization journal is on the Journal tab. It has, at the top, a place for you to see an estimate of your watch time and subscriber goals. Now, please note that this is based on the week-over-week data and not the lifetime data, so it's not as accurate as the progress tracker that uses the lifetime data. You may have to do a manual adjustment when watch time hours expire.

On the right are income and expense totals. Note that these are taken from the journal below and do not include ad revenue unless, of course, you manually enter it yourself in the journal. Below, in this section, you can choose the range for the data that is displayed to the right. You can use the selectors to choose a start range and an end range to be compared.

After selecting these start and end ranges, the data is displayed here. Please note that when selecting a range, an error can occur if the date you're starting from is after the date you selected in the "To" location or if the "From" selection for the end range is not after the "To" selection in the start range.

Let me say that again: an error can occur if the date that you're starting from in either range is after the date you selected in the "To" location for that range or if the "From" selection for the end range is not after the "To" selection in the start range.

Also, note that if you select All Data from any of the selectors, then all data will be used. This is where calculations are placed, taken from the journal below for the selected range. These are calculated when income or expense options are selected and entered here. Also, note that the Amount field is only used when either an income or expense category is selected.

Another feature is the ability to create a report. This report can be based on these metrics by right-clicking here. A menu will appear to allow you to click Copy. Then you can right-click here again, which will bring that same menu up again. I want to note here that if you're pasting the report into another program, such as an email or a Google Doc, then you'd simply choose Paste. However, if you want to paste the report into the journal cell that we selected, then you actually need to click Paste Special and, from the extended menu, choose Values Only. This will paste the text of the report into the cell instead of the formulas that created the report.

This is all made possible by exporting the YouTube analytics data from YouTube Studio and then selecting the top two rows, which highlight all of the data in those rows. Now, without moving your mouse away from the highlighted rows, right-click, and a menu opens where you can select Copy. Then you go to the Channel Data tab, scroll to the next empty row, and double-click here.

When you double-click here, this will open a calendar. From the calendar, select any day that is within the week that the data you copied represents. The week number and range dates will be automatically entered. Now, place your mouse here in the top leftmost cell of the data portion of the row you selected. After selecting the cell, right-click, and a menu will appear. Select Paste. This pastes the data into the rows.

Now you can look here where you can select whether you got monetized that week and enter the number of long-form and short-form videos that you created. When you're done, if you select the Summary tab, you'll see the data is organized along with the income and expense entries from the journal.

I should also mention that the row highlighted in yellow with the star on the left side references data from the Channel Data tab at the top, and this is where you paste a single entry related to the historical data of your channel. This data is only used when All Data is selected in the journal.

Creating content starts with ideas.

The content calendar has what I call an Idea F. This tab is used primarily as a way of organizing the ideas that will show up later on the content calendar.

Note at the bottom is the scroll bar that brings into focus other columns that are off to the right. I will show you those columns in a moment. Here, you can select a category. Note that this tool allows you to set up to 30 categories.

Here is a sample entry. This column has the idea number. Note that numbering is done automatically. In this column, you can put any text to indicate that the video is published. I choose to put the YouTube video ID. When something is put in this column, the row turns gray like the sample entry to make it easy to see what ideas have already been used.

Here, you can type notes about the idea, and here you can type the video title. I would suggest that when the video is published, you make sure this title is the exact title used.

If we use the scroll bar and scroll to the right, we notice that these columns stay the same while other columns move, revealing additional sections. This is where you can link up to three thumbnails. These thumbnails would be stored in your Google Drive. Note that if you have multiple thumbnails, the option number at the top will be used when we jump to the calendar later.

This is also where you can link source notes or attach a source note document. If you right-click on a cell, a menu will appear where you can choose Smart Chips and File to attach a link to a file or document that's in your Google Drive. This is where you can keep track of your end card notes.

When you scroll all the way to the right, it reveals the Questions I Am Answering or Things I Am Teaching column. The last column is a system column used to allow the automatic numbering to work and should not be edited.

Now, if we jump over to the Content Calendar tab, you can see that this is set up by week. It allows you to schedule up to two videos each day.

At the top, you'll notice a place to click to see a drop-down list of the available unused video ideas from the Idea Farm. This list only shows ideas that have not yet been placed on the content calendar and is for reference only, so you can make note of the idea number for a given video.

With that idea number, you can put that number in any of the ID slots, and when you hit enter, a thumbnail and a title for that video are automatically populated.

I would also note that behind the scenes, the ID was removed from the list of available IDs. If you remember, in the Idea Farm, we could have up to three thumbnails. Here is where you enter one, two, or three to correspond with the winning thumbnail entry, assuming that you want to track that.

So to get a free copy, I provided links in the show notes or you can find the links on my website at thehomeworkdad.com. Each link will prompt you to make a copy of the tool. When you first open the tool, you may be prompted with a warning. In order to use certain features of the tools, you need to click allow access.

So why do you need to allow access? This is because some of the features, such as getting the video thumbnails from YouTube, have to access the internet, and in order to do this, you need to grant permission.

These tools are not designed for every device. This is because screen sizes are different depending on the type of device being used. The tools have been designed to work best with screens that are 1920 by 1080. This means that you may need to resize the Google Sheet.

I've designed these tools with a temporary tab that shows a blue box. If you only see one corner on the left side and not one on the right side, this means that you'll need to either resize the sheet or use the scroll bar at the bottom to resize the sheet.

Simply choose the zoom level here, which will open a menu like this. You can either select an option from the menu or what I actually do is type in a specific number and hit enter.

When you have resized the sheet so that you can see both the left and the right corners, this tab can be deleted. You can select the tab here, then right-click, which will bring up a menu. From that menu, choose delete. A warning will pop up asking if you're sure you want to delete the sheet. Simply click okay and the sheet will be deleted.

Now, each of these three tools has some common features. Each will have a cover page. This page is divided into three parts. The first shows a graphic image that has the tool's version number. If the tool is updated, this graphic will change so that you know that a new version is available.

Next to that is the useful links box. This box has links to the most common features for the tool. On the far right is a disclaimer.

Now let's talk about links in Google Sheets for a moment. I mentioned before the useful links box. Each of these options are links, but you may also see these features that are links as well.

Now, as an example of using a link, if we were to hover over and select the sorted videos data option, a popup will appear that looks something like this. This part is the actual button that you would click.

At the bottom of each Google Sheet are a set of tabs. The tabs shown will vary depending on the tool. Each sheet will have a cover page tab. This is the tab that the useful links exist on that I showed before.

Clicking on a tab will take you to that specific worksheet. Some tabs have a lock symbol like this.

This means that the worksheet has a feature enabled that will warn the users if they make changes to certain parts of the page. This can be overwritten but is there to protect the formulas on the page from accidentally being changed or deleted.

The upper left corner of most tabs will have an icon that looks like a home. This is a link that will take you back to the cover page. The down arrow icon is designed to take you to the last entry of that page or to the bottom of the page. This feature requires setting up the workbook URLs described in the next set of slides.

Setting the workbook URLs is quite easy. On the cover page, at the bottom of the useful links, is the option Set Workbook URLs. This will bring you to the helpers tab, where you will see a blue box that looks like this and says Workbook URLs at the top.

On the left side of that box are one or more tab names. These tab names correspond to the tabs in the workbook. What you do is select one of those tabs, and that will open the tab at the top of your browser.

Note what is shown here is only the top of the browser with the workbook URLs at the bottom. This is not what normally would show—normally, you would see the entire tab. This part is where the URL is found.

In Google Chrome, highlight and select all of the text and copy it by either right-clicking your mouse and choosing Copy or using the keyboard and holding down the Control key on Windows or Command key on Mac and typing C.

After copying the URL, go back to the helpers tab where the workbook URLs are located and paste it in the corresponding cell. Repeat these steps for each of the tabs in the workbook URLs section for that tool.

The Progress Tracker and the Monetization Journal both use data that you get from YouTube Studio. Although the data is different, the process for getting the data is the same.

You start by going to YouTube Studio and selecting Analytics from the menu on the left. Depending on the screen size, it may only show the analytics icon.

When you get to the Analytics page, choose the desired range by clicking here. When you click, a menu will appear that looks like this. From this menu, you would select the range for the tool you're using.

For the Progress Tracker, you would select Lifetime. For the Monetization Tracker, you would need to select Custom. As a reminder, this is because the Monetization Tracker uses weekly data.

After choosing the desired range, select the Advanced Mode button here. This will open a screen that looks like this. Click the plus sign to open the list of Metrics.

When the Metrics screen opens, it will look something like this.

Note that some options will be grayed out and others will have a line through them. The options we are interested in are the ones that are neither grayed out nor have a line through them, such as these. If you've already been monetized, then other options such as CPM and RPM would be available for you to select as well.

On the right, you may have a scroll bar that looks like this. If you do, when you scroll down, you can see the rest of the list, such as these options that I select to track engagement.

Let's walk through the steps of adding a Metric. Let's begin by taking note of the columns that are shown here. Now, click the plus sign here.

When the Metric list opens, select Average View Duration. After a few moments, you'll be brought back to the previous screen. Now, if you remember, we started with these columns, but after adding the Average View Duration, the columns change, and the column for the new metric was added here.

If you're adding other metrics, repeat the process for each metric you want to track. After you have added the desired metric, click here. From the pop-up that appears, select Google Sheets.

You may notice a message appear at the bottom of the screen that says Generating Spreadsheet will open in a new tab. It's possible, however, that depending on your browser's settings, a tab may not show up.

You may also see a different message at the bottom that appears for a short period of time. This says that the spreadsheet was generated successfully, but the pop-up was blocked and asks you to disable your pop-up blocker.

If you don't want to disable the pop-up blocker for this page, then you need to select this link to open the generated spreadsheet in a new tab. Note: This needs to be done before the link disappears.

On the other hand, if you're okay with allowing YouTube Studio to show pop-ups, which is what I do, then look at the URL bar here and find the blocked pop-up icon that looks like this.

When you click on it, a pop-up will appear that looks like this. Select Always Allow, and then click Done. Try exporting your data again. This time, it should open in a new tab.

If you want a deeper dive into these tools or other videos related to growing a YouTube channel, click the link on the screen. It will take you to a playlist. In that playlist, I will have other deep dive videos for each of the tools.