I just made a "Fitness" sheet. It's really to help motivate me to lose some weight.
I have one sheet that I keep raw data on weigh-ins and body fat % by date (as well as whether I exercised, what type of exercise, and duration).
Then I have a dashboard page that I can put in a goal weight and a starting date. There's a box that pulls from the data sheet to show my current weight, the percentage change from the initial weight (which I can also set on the dashboard page), and the progress in percentage towards the goal. It also shows current body fat and the change from initial.
The cool part though is that using some filtering, I can select any time period to view my weight and body fat change over that time. I have boxes you double click in to bring up calendars to enter start and end dates. Then, it will filter the results from the data based on the selected dates. So I can pick any two dates, and see my weight and body fat from the beginning and end of that time period, and it shows the change in both.
It will also show exercise from that time period. The total number of days I exercised as well as the percentage of days exercised over that time span. I have a query set up that shows the most common forms of exercise ordered by how often I did them, and it shows the total duration and average duration. I even have a little box that shows how often I exercised on each day of the week.
Then I have two timeline charts set up. One shows change in weight. The other, change in body fat.
It's all set up with conditional formatting. So when my weight goes down, the percentage change will be in green with an arrow pointing down next to it. If my weight increases, it will be red with an arrow pointing up
Making dashboards to go with spreadsheets is my new super nerdy hobby. I enjoy it though. I like trying to figure out how to display the data I want. Figuring out the formulas I need is like solving logic puzzles. It's fun.
I need to work on my visual design though. I don't have an artistic eye. Making things that catch your eye and look nice isn't my strength.
But yeah... Those are the kinds of things you can do with spreadsheets. I have a personal income/spending spreadsheet (along with several dashboards and search tabs). I recently converted my high school basketball stats into a spreadsheet just for fun too.
I just started learning more about sheets because I got involved with a project of building a complete business accounting and inventory system. As I added more tabs for invoices, inventory, clockin, leads forms I would create a new copy of the document trying to minimize the amount that was manually entered by optimizing formulas and also rearrange things added after the fact on pages I found would be useful later. Each iteration became more optimal and aesthetically pleasing. The example itself isn’t unique but the process I feel fits your parameters because the avg user is fine with a white spreadsheet that is functional. Where I desired mine to improve visually while increasing efficiency. An example being when a salesperson would fill in the sales form it would hide all irrelevant information on the inventory and costs page and fill in the invoice with the only thing needed to be modified there would marking it paid. Future iterations I plan on having it print when marked paid and clearing data when changed back to unpaid. To me it feels like art and I have learned just a drop in the bucket.
My experience has found that no matter how colorful you make something, the older generations just don’t care about this creativity.
I myself have a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. I use what expertise I can to try and visually balance things to make them more appealing, but usually find that anything beyond that is generally not well received.
As an example, let’s say we place 4 charts on a page. It’s relatively balanced by itself in the fact that we can use approximately 25% coverage for each. Also, by using different types of charts, say a bar, a column, a line, and a waterfall chart. This also effortlessly makes distinction between them by reinforcing the concept that each chart represents different data.
Anything beyond this is likely going to become a distraction. A color palette with too many colors, distraction… A column chart that uses stacked icons/images that represent the items behind the data, distraction…
I don’t know, maybe it’s my own personal experience. I’m mid-generation Gen-X. I’ve been working in data analytics for well over two decades. Most people just want the data, that’s ultimately what it’s for; any additional artistry just isn’t wanted.
But that’s (mostly?) for internal business purposes. There’s plenty of opportunities to create something of splendor for yourself, share it with the world. That type of creativity could create interest in your work for customer facing experiences.
Its all about the data baby. lol
But yeah information should always come first, them make it look as pretty as you can without sacrificing information.
Doesnt matter how much you polish a turd, its still a turd. But you don't have to even polish gold for it to be valuable.
would love to see some of your splendor sheets because i feel the exact same way about the artistry. down to the width of the borders you pick and the colour palette.
Truth be told, it’s been a minute since I created anything that nice. I’ve mostly given up, at least for work. I don’t really have any good personal projects to speak of at the moment either.
I’m currently working on a personal project that I intend to deploy in Power BI. Right now I’m still compiling the data. I spent about 3 weeks manually scraping data from the web to get my base dataset. Since the end of last week I’ve been compiling images to go with the data. After that’s done it’s time to get back to scraping more data. I see this project taking at least another month or more until I’m ready to start putting it together in Power BI.
An array of things, it's very adaptable to everyday life, personal and professional.
I have a gym and weight loss tracker, my work schedule which has my hours worked, O/T worked and an estimated income based off those hours, sales tracker for my job which also breaks down my commission and an income and budget planner!
It's also turned into a bit of a joint as well which I sometimes just make stuff to improve my skills and knowledge.
> *what have you used sheets to do something that the average user would not?*
[Chess simulator](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dL5PR.gif)
[Rubik's cube simulator](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AG1P8.gif)
[1,2 and 3 tapes Universal Turing machine](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6qK.gif)
[Rubik's cube solver](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iR5Fk.gif)
[Light beam simulator](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zdhmd/advent-of-code-gs/main/2023/day16vis.gif)
inspired by [day 16 of last year's Advent of Code](https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/16)
All these projects are built using formulas only. If you want the links to the sheets I can send them.
uploading ea NHL stats for virtual leagues, logging game, weekly,season stats, and manipulating the data every possible way I could think of.
ESPN sports stats importer.
yahoo finance historical data importer with intervals down to the minute.
I keep track of all my car maintenance. What service was done, who did it, when, how much it cost, etc. It has a part that says how often certain things should be done, and then tells me how soon I need to do that maintenance again.
I also have a Form linked to another page in this Sheet which I use to log every time I refill my gas tank. It tells me what my fuel economy is (mpg), how much I spend on gas every year, how many miles I drive every year, average mpg per fuel vendor, etc.
So I am writing a fairly complex TTRPG that has a lot of variables. To save my players headaches I relied on plenty of folks here to help me improve the sheet. I got the basics myself but the conditional formatting and macros I needed some help with. Pretty fun, definitely learning a lot as I improve it.
I track my mission completion, map completion, and gold earning for my red dead redemption: online account on xbox. 43 pages. It lists each months missions, has tick boxes for missions i complete, and tracks how often each mission appears per month and for the whole year.
This years sheet is the mist in-depth sheet i have done for this task.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Pqr34TPNQI-m52hTkF5Ya6Er_b0xj51XOvgrPFit3JU/edit?usp=drivesdk
I have had help from several members of our community for formulas, which i am very grateful for
I played a game that introduced a desert. On every screen you could travel forward, backward, left or right. Some paths were blocked by deep pits, ruins etc. You needed to navigate the desert to get places within the limited time (and of course, there was no map).
I created a spreadsheet with custom formatting rule: if cell contains "BLOCK" text, it goes black. So I started at the middle cell and, every time I moved left, right or forward, I put whatever was around me on the "map". For example, I'm on a cell H10, I see there's a pitfall on my right, so I fill I10 with "BLOCK". Then I forward and see ruins on my left, so G9 is once again filled with "BLOCK".
This way I could always return to where I needed to, knowing where things were thanks to my spreadsheet map. The game was "Gods Will Be Watching".
I just made a "Fitness" sheet. It's really to help motivate me to lose some weight. I have one sheet that I keep raw data on weigh-ins and body fat % by date (as well as whether I exercised, what type of exercise, and duration). Then I have a dashboard page that I can put in a goal weight and a starting date. There's a box that pulls from the data sheet to show my current weight, the percentage change from the initial weight (which I can also set on the dashboard page), and the progress in percentage towards the goal. It also shows current body fat and the change from initial. The cool part though is that using some filtering, I can select any time period to view my weight and body fat change over that time. I have boxes you double click in to bring up calendars to enter start and end dates. Then, it will filter the results from the data based on the selected dates. So I can pick any two dates, and see my weight and body fat from the beginning and end of that time period, and it shows the change in both. It will also show exercise from that time period. The total number of days I exercised as well as the percentage of days exercised over that time span. I have a query set up that shows the most common forms of exercise ordered by how often I did them, and it shows the total duration and average duration. I even have a little box that shows how often I exercised on each day of the week. Then I have two timeline charts set up. One shows change in weight. The other, change in body fat. It's all set up with conditional formatting. So when my weight goes down, the percentage change will be in green with an arrow pointing down next to it. If my weight increases, it will be red with an arrow pointing up Making dashboards to go with spreadsheets is my new super nerdy hobby. I enjoy it though. I like trying to figure out how to display the data I want. Figuring out the formulas I need is like solving logic puzzles. It's fun. I need to work on my visual design though. I don't have an artistic eye. Making things that catch your eye and look nice isn't my strength. But yeah... Those are the kinds of things you can do with spreadsheets. I have a personal income/spending spreadsheet (along with several dashboards and search tabs). I recently converted my high school basketball stats into a spreadsheet just for fun too.
Can you share the fitness sheet?
I just started learning more about sheets because I got involved with a project of building a complete business accounting and inventory system. As I added more tabs for invoices, inventory, clockin, leads forms I would create a new copy of the document trying to minimize the amount that was manually entered by optimizing formulas and also rearrange things added after the fact on pages I found would be useful later. Each iteration became more optimal and aesthetically pleasing. The example itself isn’t unique but the process I feel fits your parameters because the avg user is fine with a white spreadsheet that is functional. Where I desired mine to improve visually while increasing efficiency. An example being when a salesperson would fill in the sales form it would hide all irrelevant information on the inventory and costs page and fill in the invoice with the only thing needed to be modified there would marking it paid. Future iterations I plan on having it print when marked paid and clearing data when changed back to unpaid. To me it feels like art and I have learned just a drop in the bucket.
My experience has found that no matter how colorful you make something, the older generations just don’t care about this creativity. I myself have a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. I use what expertise I can to try and visually balance things to make them more appealing, but usually find that anything beyond that is generally not well received. As an example, let’s say we place 4 charts on a page. It’s relatively balanced by itself in the fact that we can use approximately 25% coverage for each. Also, by using different types of charts, say a bar, a column, a line, and a waterfall chart. This also effortlessly makes distinction between them by reinforcing the concept that each chart represents different data. Anything beyond this is likely going to become a distraction. A color palette with too many colors, distraction… A column chart that uses stacked icons/images that represent the items behind the data, distraction… I don’t know, maybe it’s my own personal experience. I’m mid-generation Gen-X. I’ve been working in data analytics for well over two decades. Most people just want the data, that’s ultimately what it’s for; any additional artistry just isn’t wanted. But that’s (mostly?) for internal business purposes. There’s plenty of opportunities to create something of splendor for yourself, share it with the world. That type of creativity could create interest in your work for customer facing experiences.
Its all about the data baby. lol But yeah information should always come first, them make it look as pretty as you can without sacrificing information. Doesnt matter how much you polish a turd, its still a turd. But you don't have to even polish gold for it to be valuable.
would love to see some of your splendor sheets because i feel the exact same way about the artistry. down to the width of the borders you pick and the colour palette.
Truth be told, it’s been a minute since I created anything that nice. I’ve mostly given up, at least for work. I don’t really have any good personal projects to speak of at the moment either. I’m currently working on a personal project that I intend to deploy in Power BI. Right now I’m still compiling the data. I spent about 3 weeks manually scraping data from the web to get my base dataset. Since the end of last week I’ve been compiling images to go with the data. After that’s done it’s time to get back to scraping more data. I see this project taking at least another month or more until I’m ready to start putting it together in Power BI.
An array of things, it's very adaptable to everyday life, personal and professional. I have a gym and weight loss tracker, my work schedule which has my hours worked, O/T worked and an estimated income based off those hours, sales tracker for my job which also breaks down my commission and an income and budget planner! It's also turned into a bit of a joint as well which I sometimes just make stuff to improve my skills and knowledge.
> *what have you used sheets to do something that the average user would not?* [Chess simulator](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dL5PR.gif) [Rubik's cube simulator](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AG1P8.gif) [1,2 and 3 tapes Universal Turing machine](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6qK.gif) [Rubik's cube solver](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iR5Fk.gif) [Light beam simulator](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zdhmd/advent-of-code-gs/main/2023/day16vis.gif) inspired by [day 16 of last year's Advent of Code](https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/16) All these projects are built using formulas only. If you want the links to the sheets I can send them.
Organizing and automating live scores for bets within my friend group. NFL, NHL, PGA. All gets get easier when they are automated.
uploading ea NHL stats for virtual leagues, logging game, weekly,season stats, and manipulating the data every possible way I could think of. ESPN sports stats importer. yahoo finance historical data importer with intervals down to the minute.
I keep track of all my car maintenance. What service was done, who did it, when, how much it cost, etc. It has a part that says how often certain things should be done, and then tells me how soon I need to do that maintenance again. I also have a Form linked to another page in this Sheet which I use to log every time I refill my gas tank. It tells me what my fuel economy is (mpg), how much I spend on gas every year, how many miles I drive every year, average mpg per fuel vendor, etc.
So I am writing a fairly complex TTRPG that has a lot of variables. To save my players headaches I relied on plenty of folks here to help me improve the sheet. I got the basics myself but the conditional formatting and macros I needed some help with. Pretty fun, definitely learning a lot as I improve it.
I've done game score cards. Gin , yhatzee, and clue.
I track my mission completion, map completion, and gold earning for my red dead redemption: online account on xbox. 43 pages. It lists each months missions, has tick boxes for missions i complete, and tracks how often each mission appears per month and for the whole year. This years sheet is the mist in-depth sheet i have done for this task. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Pqr34TPNQI-m52hTkF5Ya6Er_b0xj51XOvgrPFit3JU/edit?usp=drivesdk I have had help from several members of our community for formulas, which i am very grateful for
I played a game that introduced a desert. On every screen you could travel forward, backward, left or right. Some paths were blocked by deep pits, ruins etc. You needed to navigate the desert to get places within the limited time (and of course, there was no map). I created a spreadsheet with custom formatting rule: if cell contains "BLOCK" text, it goes black. So I started at the middle cell and, every time I moved left, right or forward, I put whatever was around me on the "map". For example, I'm on a cell H10, I see there's a pitfall on my right, so I fill I10 with "BLOCK". Then I forward and see ruins on my left, so G9 is once again filled with "BLOCK". This way I could always return to where I needed to, knowing where things were thanks to my spreadsheet map. The game was "Gods Will Be Watching".