Microsoft Excel has been known as a powerful piece of software for personal finances, budgeting, accounting and data analysis. What you may not know is that this common program, part of the Microsoft Office suite, has a host of other uses being discovered every day.
Think of Microsoft Excel as a huge, blank list that you can type information into different columns and rows. There are individual “cells” laid out in a grid pattern on different “sheets”. By clicking on a cell, you can type numbers or text into any one of the cells, then easily change, edit, or enter math formulas into them. After you type in the information you want to organize, you can format, sort, or filter it to show you the most relevant or important information to your task.
A spreadsheet is basically an empty document with tools – you can use it to organize your daily life and get rid of some paper clutter on your own desk. Spreadsheets can be saved, emailed, and printed at any time, and updated very easily! A lot of people don’t know that spreadsheets like Excel can be used to store text instead of numbers, and that is how Excel can become a handy organizational tool. Below are some new uses for Excel that may make your holiday season easier.
Keep track of birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates for loved ones. I used to have a list like this taped inside my kitchen cabinet. Every time I added a birthday, it got harder and harder to read. Instead of scrawling important family dates on a piece of scrap paper that could be lost or wear with age, you can have one file that is simply for dates that you can call up and modify at any time. Label a column for names, then one for birthdays, and anniversaries. To sort the data, click on the column that you want the data sorted by, and click on the button for ‘Sort Ascending’ or Sort Descending’. You can sort the data you’ve entered by date so that you can view whose birthday is coming up next, or sort by name to find out when a particular relative’s birthday is. Add addresses to this and you have everything that you need to send the right card for the occasion.
Manage gift wish lists and ideas. If you have relatives that you have trouble thinking of holiday or birthday gifts for, you can keep a spreadsheet of previous gifts you’ve given them, their hobbies, and/or any clothing sizes that may be applicable. It’s always tough to keep track in a large family which brother likes golf and which likes hockey, or even harder to recall that brilliant idea that you had around July for the perfect Christmas gift for a son or daughter. If you have a worksheet for each gift recipient, you can have columns of the occasion, what you gave them, hobbies, and possible ideas for this year.
Keep everything straight to send thank-you cards. One of the biggest challenges in my house after the flurry of unwrapping at Christmas was sorting out each part of the gifts received in order to write prompt thank you notes. If you keep a list and then enter it into the sheet, you can also enter the gift-giver’s address, which you won’t have to look up next year. You can even mark when the thank you cards were sent so you make sure that everyone is taken care of.
Create a budget for gift giving. For those of us who love shopping, we know that keeping within a budget for holiday gifts can be a very difficult challenge! Once you’ve decided how much you are able to spend (or have saved) for your shopping trip, you can keep track of your purchases and determine how much money is left for you to spend without going over budget. Start at the top of the spreadsheet and create column headings for the date, the person you shopped for, a brief description of the gift purchase, and the total amount spent or charged. At the bottom of the ‘spent’ column, you can create a sum of what’s already been spent by clicking on the ‘AutoSum’ button. Then you can compare that to your budget to see how much is left. This will also give you a better idea of what you’ve spent in total, even if you are not on a budget, so that the holiday bills that arrive are not a surprise.
To get more familiar with Excel, don’t be afraid to click on buttons to see what they do. You can hover over the buttons on the menu and get a brief description of what it does. Also, remember that there is always ‘Undo’, so feel free to experiment! If you play around with ways to layout or enter your data, you’ll find even more things that you could keep track of in Excel this holiday season and beyond.
