Work Smarter, Not Harder

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Work Smarter, Not Harder

• The purpose of this presentation is to show you
  an example of thinking ahead to work smarter, not
  harder.
• In the process, the Excel Assignment is
  simplified.

Kent Van Cleave, Ph.D., College of Business
Administration, University of Tennessee
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• The assignment is to create a grade tracking
  sheet for BA 101 that looks something like this

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Before you start

• If you think before you do, you dont have to
  type in any dates or assignment names!

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• All the assignments and dates are in the
  structure workbook!
• You can copy that sheet and modify it to be your
  assignment.
• It is important to create your own file, however,
  because we check file attributes to assure that
  you did your own work.
• So you need to copy the sheet from one workbook
  to another.

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• So, open the structure workbook and a new file.

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• The next task is to copy the worksheet from the
  structure workbook to the blank file. Use help to
  tell you how.

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• Follow the Help instructions, or right click on
  the 101 Schedule tab and then select Move or
  Copy.
• Select Create a copy and designate that it is to
  the new workbook. The copy is created and Excel
  switches to it.

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Thinking

• Now if you can find a way to group all the
  assignment lines together
• You can sort them, but you will need to create
  some way to sort them first
• A column with some sort of entry that designates
  an assignment will work

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• Select the days of the week and hit the delete
  key.
• Then type an a in the blank column next to any
  assignment or test.

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• Insert a blank row above the headers to
  facilitate sorting by header. Then put the
  pointer in the first cell under Day.
• Sort by Day, ascending.

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• This moves the cells with a in them to the top.
• Now you have a list of the assignments, with due
  dates, below which you delete the extra stuff.
• Also, delete the Day column. Right click on the
  column letter above it, right click, and select
  Delete Column.

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• Now you need to duplicate lines with two things
  on them, so select the row by clicking on the
  grey row number.
• Then right click and select Copy.
• And, in the first cell below, right click and
  select Insert Copied Cells.

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• Now you have two rows of the same data.
• Edit them so the two assignments have their own
  lines.

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Finish the Job

• Now you can move these cells around, create
  headings, and do the necessary formattingbut you
  know that the assignments are all there and their
  dates are correct.

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Finish the Job

• Another option, if this wasnt a graded
  assignment, would be to create this tracking
  sheet in the structure workbook. You would copy
  as before but keep the copy in the same workbook.
• An advantage of this is that everything related
  to course structure and grading is all in one
  file.
• Of course, once the assignment is done, you
  always have the option of copying the tracking
  sheet into the structure workbook from the file
  you created for the assignment.