Spreadsheet Organization Methods

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vnatale
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by vnatale » Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:22 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:21 pm

Like most here, I keep track of a lot of information in spreadsheets. On the financial front, things like asset allocation of the PP, expense ratios for ETFs, rebalance bands, dates of IRA contributions/conversions, CPI-U, etc.

But I also keep spreadsheets of things like to do lists, recipes, interesting articles I might want to share with my email-based message group, etc.

I started to feel overwhelmed with all of my spreadsheets so I started making a spreadsheet to track the other spreadsheets and that's when I knew I was in trouble!

I hesitated to split my spreadsheet into different files. So far I've preferred just to use different sheets in one file, to make it easier to search. But it seems like Microsoft Excel is starting to get mad at me now that I've gone past the 500 tab marker. I would think the file could just keep getting bigger but I guess how the program loads the file, if it's too big.

So I started splitting my spreadsheets up. One financial spreadsheet with 127 tabs (my biggest since it has the most information), recipes has 43 tabs (based on food types, allergen info, and culture of origin), and I'm still going through the rest.

Before I get too deep into this maybe some here want to share their organization methodology with the group so I don't have to start over yet again!


Until the I decided to leave the job last year....I had been at that job nearly 12 years.

During all that time I used only two basic Excel files. One was basically to keep track of my time and what I was doing with that time. The other was for doing all my actual work.

After 12 years that one work file had many, many, many tabs.

The way I was able to quickly zip around to any of them was to create a well-organized list of all those worksheets with each tab name on the list being hyperlinked to the tab.

Major benefits from having all in one worksheet was if i was working from home....all I had to remember to do was have just have access to those two files. I did not have to think of which innumerable files to make sure I had. Finally, it made foolproof linking between the various worksheets. When I used to do that by linking between files that would oftentimes become a disaster if you forgot to always have the two files open at the same time when you were making changes to one of the files.

I have been the financial consultant for another organization since July 2009. During all that time the bookkeeper and myself have shared just one Excel file for all the work each of us need to do in Excel. Same setup. Well organized listing of all tabs with hyperlinks for each name on the list to its matching worksheet.

I think the file I used for almost 12 years had over 400 worksheets in it and it is currently 87MB in size. Does not either or open or save as quickly as a much smaller Excel file does. It also seems to use a lot of RAM when it is open.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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dualstow
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by dualstow » Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:08 pm

I’ve heard good things about OneNote and Obsidian.
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by pp4me » Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:04 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:21 pm
Like most here, I keep track of a lot of information in spreadsheets. On the financial front, things like asset allocation of the PP, expense ratios for ETFs, rebalance bands, dates of IRA contributions/conversions, CPI-U, etc.

But I also keep spreadsheets of things like to do lists, recipes, interesting articles I might want to share with my email-based message group, etc.

I started to feel overwhelmed with all of my spreadsheets so I started making a spreadsheet to track the other spreadsheets and that's when I knew I was in trouble!

I hesitated to split my spreadsheet into different files. So far I've preferred just to use different sheets in one file, to make it easier to search. But it seems like Microsoft Excel is starting to get mad at me now that I've gone past the 500 tab marker. I would think the file could just keep getting bigger but I guess how the program loads the file, if it's too big.

So I started splitting my spreadsheets up. One financial spreadsheet with 127 tabs (my biggest since it has the most information), recipes has 43 tabs (based on food types, allergen info, and culture of origin), and I'm still going through the rest.

Before I get too deep into this maybe some here want to share their organization methodology with the group so I don't have to start over yet again!
How are we supposed to know if this is a serious post or just more tomfoolery?
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dualstow
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by dualstow » Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:45 pm

Honestly, who cares O0
RIP Marcello Gandini
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vnatale
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by vnatale » Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:39 pm

pp4me wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:04 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:21 pm

Like most here, I keep track of a lot of information in spreadsheets. On the financial front, things like asset allocation of the PP, expense ratios for ETFs, rebalance bands, dates of IRA contributions/conversions, CPI-U, etc.

But I also keep spreadsheets of things like to do lists, recipes, interesting articles I might want to share with my email-based message group, etc.

I started to feel overwhelmed with all of my spreadsheets so I started making a spreadsheet to track the other spreadsheets and that's when I knew I was in trouble!

I hesitated to split my spreadsheet into different files. So far I've preferred just to use different sheets in one file, to make it easier to search. But it seems like Microsoft Excel is starting to get mad at me now that I've gone past the 500 tab marker. I would think the file could just keep getting bigger but I guess how the program loads the file, if it's too big.

So I started splitting my spreadsheets up. One financial spreadsheet with 127 tabs (my biggest since it has the most information), recipes has 43 tabs (based on food types, allergen info, and culture of origin), and I'm still going through the rest.

Before I get too deep into this maybe some here want to share their organization methodology with the group so I don't have to start over yet again!


How are we supposed to know if this is a serious post or just more tomfoolery?


Make an educated guess based upon both what is written and the possible motivations for writing it?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
sweetbthescrivener
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by sweetbthescrivener » Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:03 pm

dualstow wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:08 pm
I’ve heard good things about OneNote and Obsidian.
I don't know how good Obsidian is for tracking finances. I have been using it for organizing a writing project and it has saved me months of work.

My favorite feature is that you can view a group of documents in a three dimensional view that operates as an outline, and the advantage of Obsidian is that the outline is the document, so you can click on any part of the outline image and immediately start editing.

Obsidian is free and you don't have to store the files on their servers and there are no weird formats. It is all markdown files on your own computer.

I was just having trouble remembering where I had written what, and with the outline view, called the graph view in Obsidian, you can see exactly what is where all at once. You can also draw lines between files that are in different places but are related. You always have a visual representation of your document available to you at all times.

Also, there is a cool but basically pointless feature where you can view an animation of exactly how your document grew.

Here is mine :
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dualstow
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Re: Spreadsheet Organization Methods

Post by dualstow » Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:23 pm

sweetbthescrivener wrote:
Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:03 pm
dualstow wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:08 pm
I’ve heard good things about OneNote and Obsidian.
I don't know how good Obsidian is for tracking finances. I have been using it for organizing a writing project and it has saved me months of work.

My favorite feature is that you can view a group of documents in a three dimensional view that operates as an outline, and the advantage of Obsidian is that the outline is the document, so you can click on any part of the outline image and immediately start editing.
That’s really neat! I’m glad you said it was pointless, or I’d have had to say I didn’t get it O0
RIP Marcello Gandini
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