I just recalled one of my best uses of spreadsheets:
I used to run the annual STEM fair at my son’s middle school. About 50 to 60-ish students with projects /boards, and a team of judges walking around and evaluating. Each project had to be scored by three different judges, and their scores averaged. The first year, the judges had paper copies of the rubric and they merely had to circle the score for each category. These rubrics were handed in and had to be tallied up and averaged, mainly by me. That’s 150-180 rubric sheets that I had to process by hand, and quickly, since the kids were eager to see who won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for their grade level. It was rather stressful, and there was always the worry that I added something up incorrectly.
The 2nd year, I said eff that mess. I made a Google Forms version of the rubric and attached it to a QR code posted up on the door of the cafeteria. When the judges came in, all they had to do was hold up their phone and they’d have the rubric. They can pick their score for each category and submit the form when complete, and then reload it for the next student. The data from those forms went right to a Google sheets that i set up to do all of the calculating, averaging, and ranking for each grade level. ZERO math and zero stress for me on STEM Fair day, and I got to spend that time wandering around and interacting with the students/judges and enjoying the projects. The very second the last judge submitted their form, I had the names of every Kid who won 1st/2nd/3rd for each grade. And on top of that, I instantly had all of the data needed to compile statistical results of the students performance for each of the rubric categories that I could chart/graph and give to the science teachers so they can see where their kids did well and where they were weak, information they can use in the classroom.
And the best part is, it wasn’t very difficult to set this all up, since I have a strong foundation on how to effectively use a spreadsheet. And didn’t have to pay a dime for some specialized app.
Blackboard on a kitchen wall for me, and a photo… but same concept. While I was married, with children, so the shopping list could get extensive.
Now I am divorced and have simpler needs, it is just permanent marker on the back of the left hand. My shopping lists are rarely more than 5 items, but I do shop much more often.
Are kids Zelled their allowances today? Just given debit cards with X amount loaded per week? And if so why does it change that you need to track it? FWIW many restaurants I go to today change extra if using a card, or put another way, offer a cash discount.
I usually have a pen in my pocket and I like to easily see what is left to get … I may even circle the remaining two items so I don’t forget.
Out of curiosity I did a little poll in my office. Our office manager enters into and reads from spreadsheets but never creates or uses the formulas. None of the docs use them at home. One’s husband uses them all the time in their personal life - his job is a data analyst for financial instruments. She never does and ignores the ones he makes. None of our nurses or other staff use them (of course not at work but also in their family life). Didn’t get every person, just the ones here that day. Maybe I should make spreadsheet of the responses!
Point is that there really are lots more of us whose lives and personal ecosystems do not include creating spreadsheets than you (plural you) seem to think.
I wouldn’t trust AI with creating formulas without extensive checking, and if I’m going to need all that time to check I’ll pass, because actually creating the formulas myself takes the same time (or less) and it’s far more fun.
I like it. One more thing the spreadsheet lets you do. For my conference, we set up a calculation that averaged the scores of each reviewer (judge in your case.) because some gave almost everyone top scores and some gave almost everyone low scores. A particular score could be compared with the average for a reviewer to see whether they hated a paper (a 3 when their average was 5) or loved it (3 when their average was 1.) You probably could do this by eye, but we had hundreds of reviewers.
I just thought of another application. When I did the index for my book, I entered each term in a spreadsheet with the page numbers in columns. I could copy and paste the term from the proof, which reduced spelling errors, and I could alphabetize easily. My wife uses index cards, but my way was much faster and easier.
Which is funny–someone who doesn’t use spreadsheets looks at me and uses that chestnut to imply that I use spreadsheets for everything, when really it’s one of the many tools I use. If someone was amazed that I ever used Google Docs, or Google Sheets, or Adobe Express, or phone apps, I could offer plenty of occasions where each of those was useful, too.
Spreadsheets ain’t nothin like a hammer. I’d never use a spreadsheet to write a story, or to create a presentation, or to coordinate calendars with my family. But when I have a bunch of data that benefits from being sorted and tabulated, or when there is a set of records with similar attributes that needs to be easily searchable but not much more than that, spreadsheets are just the monkeywrench for the occasion.
I’m kind of with you on this front (though may disagree somewhat on other points). I’m comfortable with spreadsheets, but the only thing I ever use them for are in my business: I get spreadsheets from planners regarding schedules for the day-of-events, and the only spreadsheets I personally make are financial ones in my business. Opening up my Excel app, I see my most recent documents going back to 2023 are all income or tax related. I don’t do a single thing I would characterize as “personal” on a spreadsheet. I don’t even know why I would use a spreadsheet for a vacation or anything. Anything I need to track, I usually have something automatically tracking me. Before the automation days, I just didn’t track it or tracked it some other way. It’s not that important for me to account for everything countable in my life. Otherwise, I just keep little notes around or use the Note app on my phone. Outside of my business uses, I have literally not found a single use for spreadsheets in my day-to-day life. And I’m certainly not a Luddite, and I grew up my whole life (50) with this technology.
Inna and I are going to Ukraine this August/September and I can’t imagine how we would coordinate the plane flights/trains (both European trains and Ukrainian trains)/taxis without using spreadsheets. It’s not as simple as “Day 1, drive to Orlando.” “Days 2-4, Disney!” “Day 5, drive back to Atlanta”.
I used a spreadsheet to store a whole bunch of data, but that was a stopgap until I could get a database set up, which was a far better solution. So spreadsheets aren’t even always the best solution for data, which I’m sure you know if you ever ran into the problem.
Yes, spreadsheets have a lot of uses, but reliably manipulating large quantities of data isn’t one of them. I mean, you can cobble something together, but a database or even an old fashioned computer language is much better.
Absolutely. I think I got started on databases before I got started on spreadsheets, and it took me awhile to figure out how to use a spreadsheet effectively. I’m self-taught in these matters so I have huge gaps in my understanding and other things I’m sure I overuse, but in any case I find a lot of uses for spreadsheets, in that data space that’s “more complicated than a Google doc and less complicated than a database.”
Edit: and to be clear, I’m talking about how I personally use spreadsheets. I’m in no way proselytizing that everyone should use them how I do, or even use them at all. Believe me, I have no illusions about the vast number of people that don’t use them. There are plenty of things in my life–bread baking, novel reading, computer-game-playing, birdwatching–that most people don’t do but that I find pleasurable or useful.
DBs are definitely preferable for large datasets. But DBs have to be designed and administered. If I have a large set of data that I want to start working with NOW, Excel already exists on my computer, and I know how to use it. A proper DB can/should be set up later if needed. I fully recognize that for many, that last step often never happens.
For one time uses it’s acceptable (though for large datasets I personally would import the data into a database and use SQL to query it).
The problem is when businesses use Excel as a replacement for a proper database, that way lies madness
