The Streamgraph

A one-page streamgraph — the flowing stacked-area chart for seeing how several streams swell, shrink and trade weight across ordered periods. Each row is a period and each named series becomes a coloured layer, but instead of stacking from a hard zero baseline like a bar chart, the whole stack floats around a centreline. That floating baseline makes the shape read like current in a river: surges, dips, handoffs and quiet fades stand out before you read the numbers. It is best when the story is not one exact value but the changing mix over time — hours shifting between deep work, meetings, recovery and play; revenue moving between product lines; topic volume by month; effort by workstream; attention across a season; energy across a week. A stacked bar compares period by period, but a streamgraph makes continuity visible. Type the stream names once, then list each period with a value for each stream; the layers centre, scale and colour themselves. Leave it blank to print the flowing frame and sketch the streams by hand.

Best for: Showing how several parts swell and recede across ordered periods — time audits, revenue mix, topic volume, project effort, or attention streams.
Badge: Composed

A still life that evokes the The Streamgraph

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Composed printable

Watch several streams swell and recede.

A streamgraph is a stacked area chart with a floating centreline. Each period is split into named streams, but instead of stacking from a hard zero baseline, the whole shape is centred so the layers read like current in a river. That makes rises, dips, handoffs and waves easier to see than in a table or a rectangular stacked bar. Use it for time audits, attention by week, revenue mix by month, topic volume, energy allocation, project effort, or any ordered sequence where several parts trade weight over time. Leave it blank to print a flowing frame and sketch by hand.

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