PSA: My old foreman told me to stop trying to track everything in spreadsheets

He said I'd waste more time updating them than I'd save, and after three months of messy Excel files, I finally listened and got a basic scheduling app. Has anyone else made a switch from manual tracking to something simple that actually stuck?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona9852d ago

Messy Excel files" is such a real thing. I read an article that called that "spreadsheet sprawl" and it just clicked for me.

jake9862d ago

Yeah "spreadsheet sprawl" is the perfect name for it. My buddy had a client send over a file last week with data in like twelve hidden tabs, it was a total mess. Took him half a day just to find what he needed.

ryantorres2d ago

My last company had a spreadsheet for project hours that had over forty different columns. Half of them were outdated formulas from managers who left years ago. The real kicker was that the official process said to only use the first five columns, so we were all just ignoring this massive, broken document. That's when I realized a simple tool everyone actually follows is way better than a perfect system no one uses.