#18 - Teach myself to use Excel
Elizabeth February 27th, 2008
Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge
I can finally hand in my tattered membership card to the “I can’t use Excel” club!
Against all the odds, I’m crossing this one off my list. I managed to fight all the barriers that stood in my way (procrastination, reality tv, lack of giveashit) and figure out why people are so into this spreadsheet fad.
Actually, I admit that Excel is kind of cool. I’ve never had to use it at work, and never saw a purpose for it in my personal life, so it’s just one of those things I never got around to. But now that I’ve seen all the awesome stuff it can do, I’m spreadsheeting everything to the point that I think I might have a bit of a problem.
This morning I woke up at 5am, unable to fall back asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about a new idea for a spreadsheet. I ended up getting out of bed and creating an exercise-tracking, diet-watching masterpiece that would bring a tear to your eye! And although my new hobby might be bordering on obsessive compulsion, at least it’s fun.
See? (Identifying figures removed!)
If that’s not the most incredible weight-loss graph you’ve ever seen… well, I’ll eat my hat. In fact, let me just create a spreadsheet for Hats forcibly consumed in 2008 just in case, ok?
OK.
- 101 in 1001 , Cool stuff
- Comments(8)
Ah excel. My best friend… I use excel spreadsheets for so much. Even something as simple as printing a schedule of my favourite TV shows! Like I said in the Sarah Silverman post, I’m a geek ;p
p.s. I meant to add, Congratulations! on discovering the wonders of excel
haha - it’s like crack, isn’t it. I love Excel. I excel EVERYTHING too. We should form a facebook group. LOL
I know this is a totally random comment, but I humbly submit a suggestion for your new-found Excel skills:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mickeydog/2295762483/in/pool-songchart
Hiren: That is hilarious! It’s about as pointless as the stuff I’ve been making, too
Congratulations on learning something new. Your new-found knowledge will open a lot of doors for you; personally and professionally. One of the best way that I’ve found to expand that knowledge base is to find a need to use Excel. One that requires you to push, and expand, your limits.
Excel can be a very useful application. Over the years I have found a lot of new ways to use it. I have more than forty excel files on my home computer. One of these currently has 61 tabs on everything from finances to “Deal or No Deal” and my 101 list in graph form. (I’m still working on that last one.)
I enjoy going on multi-day hikes and have a hike plan sheet. One of the formulas calculates the 7 days rolling average of hiking miles per day. Here’s the formula:
=IF(G3>6,(SUM(INDEX(H$3:H$207,MATCH(G3-6,G$3:G$207,0),):H3)/7),”")
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