Time Sheet Update - TFC Edition

Lumpenprole, CPA, MST

Intro and so forth

I spent an inordinate amount of time setting up a daily time sheet in Excel. So, the framework for doing it daily exists, and works about as well as could be hoped. That s the good news. The bad news: y The three digit codes require total revision o Reflects division of life into three categories o Welcome to the Machine (WTTM), The Final Countdown (TFC) and Garbage Time (GT)  Categories not discussed here, perhaps later y No way to summarize information, at present o And am honestly clueless about how to go about this (Excel? Access?, etc.)  Must be built from soup to nuts  How much time? (Doubtless too much)

Timesheet The old version:

1 (Clickable LInk, I hope...)

(Note: If there s a way to get rid of that stupid 1 the caption insists I have, I have no clue how.)

y y y y y y

First Column = three digit code (manual enter) Second Column = Description attached to code (defined in table) Third Column = comments and/or detailed description Fourth Column = Start time (first time entered, after that a calc) Fifth column = End time (manually entered) Sixth column = Total time passed (calc)

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y y

Blank Move = macro button, sets up new sheet, from what I consider a blank template (e.g. Thursday morning hit button on Wednesday Sheet, get blank form for Thursday) Date/Day Date = manual enter, day = calc from that

2 Result of "Blank Move" Macro Button

And what I would do was set up a separate file for each quarter. Theoretically I was supposed to review and comment upon the sheets on a weekly/monthly/quarterly basis, but I never did, as best I recall. I also messed around with protecting all the calc d fields but for reasons that elude me it turned into more trouble than it was worth, as in protecting myself from accidentally typing over a calculation was not worth some sort of aggravation I shall doubtless encounter again. (I m thinking about going the protecting route again.) Offscreen: A nightmare. Doubtless a true Excel guru would take one look at how the spreadsheet is structured and run screaming for the exits. Fortunately, even though it is a rat s nest, it is a rat s nest that works, and I am not going to be touching it (or so I fervently hope.) Update: Actually, it s not so bad. I guess I was thinking of an earlier version of the same thing. The whole calculation occurs in one column of cells that s hidden. Still no plans to mess with it, but if for some strange reason I had to, I think I could, and with maybe only a medium degree of pain, moaning and anguish. Granted all those IF statements make for some pretty big files, but nothing entering the realm of the ridiculous. Probably wouldn t want a whole year in one workbook, but a quarter works, though I guess things might slow down at the end if I actually did a timesheet each day. I would also, as the spirit moved me, take a snapshot of a day and slap it into the next day s blog entry. Was candidly a pain, since I d have to save the snapshot into photobucket, then plop
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a thumbnail into the blog. Probably if I knew how to write macros at the Windows operating system level but I don t, and can t see that ever happening. I do want to do that again, but we ll have to see how things work out.

Changes Needed for TFC Compatibility

Hopefully, all I m going to need to do is to mess around with the three digit codes in the right hand window. The idea is to get things separated into their broader categories (WTTM, TFC, GT) and then at a fairly high level have some differentiation into sub-categories. However, I m not going to push this too far, since the goal is to actually have something I m willing to fill out most days, not how I spend every four minutes. The issue is trying to follow Aristotle s Golden Mean, though I m not so sure he d consider me anything other than a lost cause. Specifically, I need to design something painless enough that I will actually do it, while at the same time giving me enough of a sense how I m spending my time that it is actually worth doing. On one end of the spectrum, if I m so full of piss and vinegar when I establish the codes, parse everything to the level of taking a crap vs. wiping my ass, they ll be so many damn codes I ll never remember them all, or even where to find them. Then as the ol piss and vinegar level declines as it inevitably will I ll get annoyed and frustrated to the point I stop doing the damn thing. Plus, even if I did do it, I ve only got 27 or 28 or whatever lines to enter a day s activities onto. And while I m sure there s a way to do multiple pages for a given day, I have a sense I d only confuse the living tar out of myself if I did such a thing, as I would inevitably have to, accounting for every two minutes. And at the other end, vacuuming the rugs, doing laundry, balancing the checkbook, and going on a job interview are all worthwhile things in and of themselves, (all part of WTTM) but if I can t differentiate one from the other, I ve just defeated the whole purpose of the exercise. Even if I could figure out how to summarize daily information into something that I can create and look at with minimal pain, what would I really be looking at? An amorphous blob, to speak rhetorically. So. While I m not going to list codes in the body of this document, I m going to meditate upon my sins and also how best to show things. I do know I want related items close to each other, and obviously each of the three big categories broken out into 200 or 300 of the codes. (I assume I could go below 100, but haven t tried.) And then when I ve worked out something semi-satisfactory, show it as an attachment to this spiel.

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Summarizing
I m candidly unsure which way to go here, as in what am I going to want to see? Plus, I think, at least initially, I m going to have to do everything in Excel. I m just not good enough with Access, and nowhere near quick enough, come to that. But even in Excel, my weakest areas of knowledge are pivot tables and charts and graphs, both normal and pivot. And my sense is that what I m going to want to see is best a product of one or all of the preceding. Which means learning some new tricks, which means spending time teaching myself, which means time spent doing this is time not spent doing something else. However, I see no way around it. Frustrating, though, since I have no doubt I m going to be wandering down more than a few blind alleys. But what can I say? y y y y Timesheets must be done, duh, or else I ll have nothing to summarize. Data must be extracted from said timesheets in some form or other Said daily data must be appended to the data from other days, without screwing up either day s data This mass of numbers has to be sliced and diced and massaged with the end result being something coherent enough to follow, and presumably point my ship of state toward certain things and away from certain others It can t be something I spend globs of time on each time I want to look at the summarized data At some point or other either Excel or my computer is going to gag on the sheer volume of numbers. Which is why Access had crossed my mind, given that it can seemingly gobble up an almost infinite amount of data. But that goes on the back burner, as noted previously. What I would like to know is how much can go into Excel without said gagging. And I have no idea. I m going to have to do some fiddling and diddling and daddling and doodling (to quote the immortal Johnny Most) at what is likely a very basic level to get up to speed. o And at some point perhaps go into my own version of the Bill O Reilly technodance rave party (warning: extremely potty-mouthed link) if I am unable to come up with something in a reasonable (whatever that means) amount of time. I hope I can come up with something, though, even if it is less than I d like.

y y

Conclusion
At present, none drawn. This may be the best thing since sliced bread, or it may be that that sound you re hearing is time getting flushed pointlessly down the crapper.

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Author s Note
Lumpenprole, CPA, MST, is obviously a nom de guerre, and though the designations following my name have absolutely nothing to do with anything, I decided to add them, I guess for what amounts to amusement purposes only. I earned them, and continue to hold them. Even if I do very little with them. I have absolutely no objection with anything I write being quoted, misquoted, linked to, made sport of, or nitpicked to death. I guess I d prefer attribution when any of this is done, but if not, well, let your conscience be your guide. Someone going the deliberately anonymous route is hardly in any position to mount a convincing defense of copyright laws. Even if they wished to jeapordize said anonymity, as I most certainly do not. I also maintain what must be the least read blog on the internet at http://selfhatetheblog.wordpress.com/, and I suppose for anyone who is not me reading entries there would be about as interesting as watching paint dry. If this sounds like a plug, I guess I d be guilty as charged if I truly cared about having readers, but in all honesty I do not. It is simply a matter that since I m linking from a page on the blog to each Scribd article, I figured I m duty bound to mention that it is out there.

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