This fall's coolest accessory is not a trophy handbag, a designer shoe or a pair of skinny jeans. It's a computer program sitting right there on your desktop.
Sure, you use your Microsoft Excel to track business expenses and create spreadsheets by day. But legions of Excel-literates are databasing their lives, charting their wardrobes, dinner-party menus and DVD collections by night.
Merlin Mann, who runs the San Francisco-based 43folders.com website and is an expert in so-called "life-hacking" time management, says that for many people, Excel is one of their two or three "killer apps."
It's also a tool to manage stress. The ability to keep our myriad tasks, obligations and info bits in little boxes helps to keep us balanced, he says. "If it's on your mind, it's not getting done. It's using up space in your mind. Excel is like a robust outboard brain."
As life accelerates, we Excel-erate.
Once people have mastered the program in a work setting, it migrates home. "Next to e-mail, Excel is the most-used business application, more than Microsoft Word," Mann says. "It's like a chef's knife. People are so attached to it they become really fast and confident at it, it starts to become invisible."
San Diego computer programmer Howie Wang uses Excel for the Thanksgiving dinner he prepares for 24 guests on a two-burner stove. "I had a huge page of scribbles -- when you're done, it just looks like trash," he says in a phone interview. "It just occurred to me it would be so much easier to use Excel."
Now, with columns cross-referencing cooking times and colour-coded dishes, he and his helping friends -- who get printouts -- get everything to the table on time (you can see it at foodieview.com/blog/2005/11/03/ how-to-stay-sane-on-turkey-day/).
"The best ideas are born of frustration," Wang says. "When you first hear about it, you think it's anal, but if you try it out, you'll find it simplifies things, instead of a dozen Post-it notes all over the place."
Ask around and you'll find secret Excel-literates everywhere. TV executive Quincy Raby says she uses Excel to plot her entire work wardrobe and lay out an outfit the night before -- right down to undies, socks and accessories. Every time she buys a new item, it goes in there; every time she purges a piece, she deletes.
She's out the door in a half-hour.
"I know exactly what I have, how many shirts go with what pair of slacks, and what shoes go with what," Raby says. "Instead of mucking around in my closet, my husband and I can go for a run, or have a cup of coffee, hang out with the cat, get something to eat, and then go."
A family member of mine uses Excel for party RSVP lists, so she can see at a glance how many she's cooking for. Another used it to plan her baby's feeding schedule. One friend chucked the cheesy white wedding binder tradition for a detailed wedding chart that she could read alphabetically or chronologically. Another starts a Christmas gift spreadsheet in October to track her lists and spending.
No wonder other companies are catching the trend. In March, a Canadian company released Excel-esque software called The Baby Nanny to schedule and track baby's feeding, sleeping and fussing (http://www.thebabynanny.com). And Google recently introduced Google Spreadsheets, for creating and sharing spreadsheets on-line.
People do love to share. In answer to my query this week for spreadsheet tales on Mann's site, more than 90 aficionados posted their favourite uses. People track their favourite TV shows and TIVO choices. A comedian named Bey tracks jokes in categories such as clean or dirty, sex, religion and readiness.
Of course, there are the math brainiacs who spend their spare time using Excel to search for prime-factorization patterns, and lots of insider vocab like "dynamic programming."
