I’m tracking time spent on different projects and recording everything in minutes. For example, if I have 2340 minutes logged, that equals 39 hours. I need help creating a formula that can do this conversion automatically.
My spreadsheet has one column where each cell contains the minutes I spent on individual tasks. I want to sum up all these minute values and then convert the total into hours using a Google Sheets formula. What’s the best way to set this up so it calculates everything automatically?
I had a similar setup when tracking billable hours for freelance work. The approach I found most efficient was using SUM combined with division in a single formula. If your minutes are in column A (let’s say A1:A10), you can use =SUM(A1:A10)/60 to get the total hours directly. This handles both the summation and conversion in one step rather than converting each cell individually first. I also recommend formatting the result cell to show decimal places clearly - you can set it to display as a number with 2 decimal places, or if you prefer, use custom formatting to show hours and minutes like “0.00” hours. This method scales well when you add more entries since the range automatically includes new data if you use dynamic ranges.
u can also use the formula =A1/60 for individual cells. itll convert minute to hour for that specific task, just drag down to apply it to others. super easy!
Another approach that worked well for me when dealing with project time tracking was creating a separate totals section at the bottom of my sheet. I keep all my individual task minutes in their original format for reference, then have a dedicated cell that pulls everything together. The formula I use is something like =ROUNDUP(SUM(A:A)/60,2) which gives me the total hours rounded to two decimal places. This way I can still see my raw minute data for each task while having the converted hours total displayed prominently. The ROUNDUP function is particularly useful since most billing or reporting scenarios require you to round up partial hours anyway. You might also want to consider adding a text formula next to it that shows the breakdown, like using =SUM(A:A)&" minutes = “&ROUNDUP(SUM(A:A)/60,2)&” hours" for a clear summary display.