My job requires me to manage spend and keep within budget allocations across a complex assortment of paid search campaigns. These budgets aren’t tiny (high 6 digits to 7 digits) and spend isn’t always predictable (dependent on customer demand). Missing our spend targets by 1%, or even 0.1%, can lead to all sorts of headaches (1% of $1 million = $10,000; imagine unintentionally spending $10,000 more than you were told to).
Given the above context, I think I’m fairly justified in being anally retentive in my money math. I try to be triple-sure that I have all the right numbers in front me before I make a decision or recommendation. Over time, I’ve come to treat spreadsheets as complex notebooks, combining tables, functions, screenshots, shapes and notes in a messy-but-intelligible complete representation of my thought process, verification steps and calculations.
Below is a quick illustrative example I threw together to show how I treat a spreadsheet as a notebook.
Numbers may be better suited to moving around chunks of information on a “canvas” of a spreadsheet:
Over the last year or so, I’ve tried to stop being as inflexible as I used to be in the tools I use and the ways I use those tools. I’m trying to be more pragmatic in order to get tasks done as efficiently and correctly as possible at the end of the day. This spreadsheet-as-a-notebook approach has certainly been helpful in my work and personal lives, especially when working with lots of information that needs to be understood and manipulated within a nuanced context.