Ultimate Lab & PhD Thesis Experiment Tracker (Excel Template)

This tracker is designed to help you organise your experimental work and see at a glance how each piece of work contributes to your thesis. It’s colour-coded, flexible, and simple to update as you progress. You just need to fill it in - it's EASY to get going with the flexible UI system and the drop-downs are ready to go, providing you with clarity and control over your thesis-writing process!

1. Start With a Unique Identifier (UI)

• Every experiment or piece of work gets a Unique Identifier (UI) — a simple three-digit number (e.g., 001, 002).
• This allows you to reference experiments quickly across your notes, lab book, or management system and avoids ambiguity.
• You can define your piece of work to be as small as you want, allowing a modular approach to starting and improving your work, as well as tracking your progress.

2. Lab Book Tracking

• Lab Book # and Page: Record where this experiment appears in your physical lab book.
• Sample Codes: Note any codes or identifiers used for materials, samples, or batches linked to this experiment (super useful for further experimentation and essential for accurate write-ups!).
• This section ensures you can trace every experiment back to its original records.

3. Thesis Inclusion & Structure

• Including: Decide if this piece of work is Main, Supplementary, Not Sure, or Omit (colour-coded for clarity and instantly helps with prioritisation).
• Chapters & Headings: Link the work to where it belongs in your thesis structure — chapter, heading, and subheading. If you need to chop-and-change your structure, you can keep track easily this way!
• This step connects day-to-day lab work with your thesis writing, giving each experiment context and purpose.

4. Experiment Details

• Lab Book Title: Give the experiment a concise name.
• Aims and Objectives: Briefly describe the purpose of this work.
• This keeps your tracker readable at a glance and helps when drafting sections of your thesis later.

5. Progress Tracking

This section shows how far each experiment has moved through the academic process:

• Status: Is the experiment planned, conducted, or not needed?
• Experimental Write-Up: Is it informal, formal, or complete?
• Results Status: Have results been collected, processed, or fully analysed?
• Figures: Track whether primary and secondary figures are produced, captioned, and ready for inclusion.
• Discussion: Mark if results have been adequately discussed for thesis integration.

These fields provide a clear pipeline from “raw experiment” to “ready-to-write thesis content.”

6. Tips for Using the Tracker

• Update regularly: Spend 5 minutes at the end of each lab day updating new or ongoing experiments. The process is quick and efficient.
• Use colour codes: The colour system gives instant visual feedback on progress (e.g., red = pending, green = complete).
• Filter for progress: Use Excel filters to quickly see what still needs to be written up or analysed.
• Duplicate for projects: If you manage multiple projects, duplicate the tracker sheet and rename it for each.