Sometime in November, I got an interesting E-mail from a gentleman named Guru. The title said “Excel Workshop in Maldives”. In the email, Guru introduced himself and asked me if I can come to Maldives to conduct few Excel workshops for companies and individuals.
I usually neglect such mails as many times the actual training (or big consulting assignment etc.) will not happen. So I replied to him giving my number and asked him to call me. I was surprised to receive his call. After talking awhile, it was clear that Guru is tenacious and would not take No for an answer.
So we set things in motion and thanks to Guru’s perseverance, I ended up boarding a flight to Male on 22nd of January. This is a story of what happened next…,
(note: I traveled with my son & Jo. Business trip for me, beach holiday for them.)
The journey (onward):
Almost all the flights to Male from India leave from either Trivandrum, Chennai or Bangalore. We choose the Trivandrum option because it is a direct flight (other 2 flights have a pit-stop at Colombo, Sri-Lanka). The flight took 75 minutes.
Soon after take-off, all we could see was big-blue Indian Ocean beneath us. About 60 minutes in to the journey and small islands and resorts started appearing. They looked nothing like I have ever imagined. The seas were clear blue or green or a mix. The beaches were pure white. The islands looked lush with greenery. The water villas (houses constructed on water) looked calm and elegant.
The same pattern repeated for next 5-10 minutes in various islands before our pilot announced that we would be touching down at Male international airport.
Male Airport
When I saw Male’s map on Google, I thought the airport could not fit anything bigger than an ATR. But I was surprised when we boarded an Airbus 320 at Trivandrum. But I was in for even bigger surprise when we landed at Male. The airport is as big as many other airports I have seen. In fact, they have an entire island for the airport.
So after getting down and finishing immigration formalities we came out.
A note about visas for Maldives:
Maldives has no prior visa requirements for a majority of countries. Almost anyone can go and get a tourist visa for 30 days. Visit Maldives Visa site for more info.
Guru was waiting for us outside airport. We took a ferry to Male, the capital of Maldives. The airport and capital city are well connected by frequent ferries (one every 10 mins). It takes about 15 mins to reach the city.
Male City – Initial Impressions
I have been to some of the most crowded cities in the world – New York, Mumbai, Hong Kong. But I never saw narrower roads than I did in Male. This is probably the first impression you get too. A majority of Maldivians live in Male. Since the city is a small island, they had to get creative to contain so many people and shops and everything. Some of the impressive ways they manage this:
- Almost all roads are one-ways
- Many buildings are multistory and quite narrow.
- Many elevators are small and can carry 6 people at a time.
- People use bikes or cycles (although you will find a lot of cars, including a BMW that was parked near Sultan Park for the entire duration I was there)
Since I was traveling with family, Guru has arranged accommodation for us in his boss’ house. This was much better than staying in a hotel as my son got more space to play and run.
How my Workshops went?
I had a busy schedule from the moment I landed. On the first day, we conducted a Free Excel Workshop in Aminiya School. This was to get participants to sign-up for our paid workshop.
I choose the topic of Conditional Formatting as it is very close to my heart and the session went very well. We ended up adding few more people to our evening batch.
Later Guru briefed me that I need to conduct 18 hours of Excel training at STELCO (State Electricity Company) and 9 hours at HDC (Hulhumale Development Corp)
We started the training at STELCO next day. We spent the first day discussing Excel overview and writing formulas. The participants were quite friendly and by second day we were cracking jokes and having fun while learning lots of stuff.
Later in the night I conducted a session for individual participants (about 9 of them) again on same topics.
This went for 3 days before we added one more client – FSM (Fuel Supplies Maldives).
What I learned from my workshops?
- Start with Overview: I always assumed that people would know how to use Excel. So my learning plan started with Formulas (that is how it is for Excel School too). But I was surprised to realize that people want to have a good overview of Excel before jumping in to specifics. So after frist day morning, I changed my plan. My first class became “overview of Excel”. In fact, I even added a lesson Zero to Excel School after coming back.
- No plan: Before leaving for Maldives, I made elaborate learning plans for both intermediate and advanced Excel sessions. But after landing there, I realized that it is better to have a loosely structured plan and modify it as per participant’s needs.
- Metaphors are powerful: Often while explaining concepts like namebox, relative vs. absolute references, countif, pivot tables, conditional formatting it was difficult for some participants to understand how they would be relevant. But thankfully, using metaphors I could get my point across
- Talking for 8 hours a day is a lot of work: After talking for more than 8 hours a day for a week, suddenly I respect all my teachers even more.
- Pivot tables excite people: In all my classes, when I demoed pivot tables, I could hear “wow!!! that is so much better” from many participants. They raise the overall curiosity of the class and suddenly everyone is paying attention to know more. (hint: expect more pivot table stuff on chandoo.org too)
Participants’ Response:
We had about 50 people attending the workshops. And a majority of them gave a very high rating (4 or 5 out of 5) for it. Many actually wrote testimonials and praised us for doing it. All 3 companies are hopeful to do a follow-up workshop in a few months.
I also learned a lot of things about Excel while explaining or answering students’ questions.
I had a self-doubt whether I would be able to pull off an in-person training program. Now, I am more confident. I can handle future workshops more easily.
So it was a win-win for all of us.
What we did when I was not teaching Excel?
Despite being a small city, Male has lots of surprises. So we were busy for the first 4 days exploring the city and discovering our way back to home. The best things I liked about Male are,
Walks: You can walk from one end of Male to other end in about 30 mins. So you would start from one ocean front and end up another. Although the streets are narrow, they all have foot-paths. So it is easy to walk, leisurely explore the shops and other attractions, watch other tourists and locals.
Ocean Front near Jumhoore Maidhan: is a very lively place to sit and watch tourists, enjoy the sun, ocean breeze, play in the park (or watch your kids play).
(Nishanth and Jo in the sun – Near Jumhoore Maidhan, Male)
Food: Lots of restaurants serving authentic Asian, continental and Italian varieties. So many varieties of fish and other sea-food at really affordable prices. We especially liked Thai and sea-food at Lemongrass restaurant near Farhadee Magu (close to Sultan Park).
People: Although we did not interact with many people outside my training hours, what I found is that people are very friendly, helpful and cheerful. Participants of my training program are even more awesome as they showed immense curiosity and sense of humor.
About the beaches:
But many people do not go to Maldives to visit Male. They go because of the spectacular beaches in Maldives.
Unfortunately, due to my busy schedule, we could not get much time to explore various beautiful islands in the archipelago. But we did go to two different islands and they both were mind-blowing.
Hulhumale:
(view from Hulhumale jetty)
This is an island close to Male. Government of Maldives is developing this island as the mainland Male is very congested. This is where all the new projects are coming up. (and HDC, one of the companies I did training for, is developing the island)
We went to Hulhumale by a ferry on Wednesday (26th of Jan). Hulhumale has lots of beaches (Male has only ocean fronts and one artificial beach). The beaches are very clean, sand is clear white and you can walk almost 200-300 meters in to the water without getting drowned (in some places). We spent the whole evening there.
Six Sense Resort – Lankanfushi Island
(view from a water villa – Six Sense Resort – Lankanfushi Island)
A couple of the evening batch students worked at Six Sense Soneva Gili Resort in Lankanfushi Island (one was a training manager and another is a F&B manager). Initially, the training manager tried to arrange a similar workshop at the resort. But they could not make a decision immediately. So we agreed that next time I visit Maldives, I will conduct a workshop at the resort.
But they invited us to spend a day at the resort. Since Maldives is an Islamic country and Friday (and for some companies Saturday) are holidays. So we decided visit the island on Friday (28th). Initially I wanted to say no to the proposal as I was too tired with all the classes. But my wife was keen to enjoy the beaches. So we did go.
Going there proved to be the best part of the trip. The island and the beaches there are nothing like I have ever seen. The waters, sun, sky and calm resort instantly rejuvenated me. We spent the whole afternoon at the beach. I even swam for a while.
We had some coffee and snacks the restaurant. My son started crying loudly when the restaurant supervisor, a Japanese lady, said hello to him.
(3 of us at the staff canteen – Six Sense resort)
We left the place barely in time to catch the ferry back to Male.
Are you planning to Visit Maldives? A short tourist guide:
When to go?
November to March is a really good time to visit Maldives. It is very sunny and hot through out the year here. So you may want to avoid the summer months (April-June) or Monsoons (July-October).
What to take?
Beach-wear of course. They have showers in Airport too!!! Carry sun-glasses, hats, slippers, cotton clothes.
About Visas:
For a majority of countries, You do not require visa to enter Maldives. You can get a tourist visa for 30 days upon arrival. Visit Maldives Visa information site.
How much it costs to visit Maldives?
Maldivian currency is Rufiya (MVR). You can get 12.75 MVR for each US $.
Almost all the items are imported to Maldives from near-by countries. For this reason, many food items etc are expensive. That said, compared to costs in many developed countries, Maldives is cheap. You can have a really good meal (with sea-food etc.) for about $10.
Some hacks for budget travelers:
- For breakfast, go to Seahouse at the Hulhumale Ferry Terminal. They have breakfast buffet for 65 MVR on all days. You can find all varieties (English, Continental, US, Asian) of breakfast items, juices etc. The best part is, you can watch the ocean, speedboats, soak in sun while enjoying the food for a couple of hours.
- Do not buy milk: It is very expensive here. Instead, you can buy Milk powder and use it for coffee / tea. You can also get yogurt.
- Take a cab: Taxis are un-metered in Male. You can go from anywhere to anywhere by paying just 20MVR. So if you are tired, hail a cab.
- Eat out: There are tons of places through of Male that are cheap and delicious. You can walk in to almost any restaurant and eat food for less than $20.
- No shopping: Since almost everything are imported, you will find the prices to be on higher side for usual shopping items like consumer electronics, clothes, shoes or cosmetics. I was told TVs are cheaper, but carrying one to back home would be a pain.
Closing Thoughts:
We really enjoyed our brief stay at Maldives. I am thankful to Guru and IIPD (the organization Guru works for) for everything they have done to make the training workshops a great success.
Special thanks to STELCO, HDC and FSM for trusting me and giving their time & attention.
I was left with a few hundred Rufiyah by the time we returned to Airport. But I did not give them back to Guru as I know that I would be visiting Male once again. But next time, I hope I could spend a few more hours by the beach too.
Bonus Excel Tip for those of you making this far:
I know you read the travelogue because you want to know more about me. I find it very humbling. So here is a small Excel tip 🙂
Use NETWORKDAYS.INTL() to calculate working days between 2 days with custom weekends:
Often, you may want to find out number of working days between 2 dates. We can use NETWORKDAYS() formula to do this. For eg. NETWORKDAYS(“1-JAN-2011″,”31-JAN-2011”) would tell you the number of working days in Jan (assuming Saturday and Sunday are weekend holidays).
But what if you live in countries like Maldives, where Friday is the weekend. Well, thankfully, you can use the NETWORKDAYS.INTL() formula. This is a new formula introduced in Excel 2010.
So =NETWORKDAYS.INTL(“1-JAN-2011″,”31-JAN-2011”,16) will give you the number of working days in Jan 2011 assuming Friday is a weekend holiday.
But what if you don’t have Excel 2010?
Well, you can use networkingdays() custom UDF instead.
63 Responses to “To-do List with Priorities using Excel”
Very useful, you always give us good ideas for our excel files. Thanks
I've been working on calendars leagues. If you must watch a bit on my blog. http://economiaemergente.com/
EXCELLENTE!!!!
Needed .. thanks for sharing
[...] To-do List with Priorities using Excel [...]
Excellent spreadsheet. Nice work.
Ciao Peppe!, Tante grazie per compartire il tuo eccellentissimo lavoro in Excel. Tu hai a web blog? - Grazie Chandoo per la publicazione.
Hello Peppe, Thank you so much for sharing your most excellent work in Excel. Have you a web blog? - Thanks Chandoo for publication.
Hi Jose,
tanks for your appreciations and tks to Chandoo for publishing
my little job. it's a pleasure for me to be mentioned on my guru's blog.
Just to reply to Jose, I don't have a blog, but if you want to share some ideas or need some help don't hesitate to contact me also on twitter like @peppinogreco.
Regards
Peppe
Hi Peppe!
Thank you for this very useful excel spreadsheet!
Great!
I've learned a little bit of VBA during the last year, and get addicted to it, but sometimes, it makes us forget how powerful excel is, without macros.
Nice post!
Cauê
Hi Chandru,
A very good post. Though I had been reading your posts for a longer time, did not post any questions so far except for wishing and appreciating.
I have a question here. I had attempted to do something on my own (a little R & D) on the new year resolution template itself. However, I could not do it fully. Thankfully, you had provided the link for each step , which was exactly what I was looking for 🙂
I had done with the check boxes and also conditional formatting. I am glad indeed. I am able to highlight a row when a check box is checked. However, the value of the checkbox gets printed in the same cell which it was linked to. How can I avoid it ? I could not see it in the sample excel files you had provided.
I appreciate your help in this.
Cheers,
Raghavan alias Saravanan M
Jeddah | Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Hi Raghavan... Thanks for your comments and I am glad you are trying to build this on your own. There is no way we can avoid printing the check box value in linked cell. If you do not want to see "TRUE or FALSE" in a cell, you do one of the following.
Dal Messico grazie tanti Peppe.
A great idea, thanks for shearing it with all of us.
Daniel
Lovely idea - downloading now.
What software is used to create the animated gif of the template in action? Love to replicate to simple demos on my site.
Cheers
Glen
@Glen
Chandoo uses Camtasia Studio to make the animated GIF's
You can read what else Chandoo uses here: http://chandoo.org/wp/about/what-we-use/
Cheers
I should have checked first.
G
Still defeated.
What I am looking for is the TORN edge effect as applied to the screen capture. I can see how to do this for captured images, not vidoes.
I wonder if they are post processed in some way?
Cheers
G
Sorted.
Capture white screen with torn paper edge with SnagIT
Make the inner of border transparent (Photoshop)
Add the image as an overlay in Camtasia.
Sorry to hijack an Excel thread with this - its been bugging me for a while.
G
Raghavan
I just make the font white for the cell linked to the checkbox or if you have shading applied then font colour = shading so its there but is not seen or printed.
John
Excellent! Thank you very much.
Excellent thanks!
Happy New Year.
Looks simple but excellent. Never knew you could do this without VBA.
Thanks Pepe
good day,
Please, how can I create a chart with scroll bar that is also dynamic in PPT.
I created the chart in Excel, but I need this information to be presented dynamically in powerpoint and when I put the bar rolls loses functionality. please can you help me?
Come nella migliore tradizione:grandi ma semplici idde dall'Italia.
bravo Peppe
This was outstanding. I have had two bosses give me to-do lists that I was very unhappy with. I went and added 15 more lines to this and it was really easy to so with a little reformatting and changing some links. THANKS!!!
Thanks. really usuful. Will be waiting for such thing in future.
Great tutorial! It would be interesting if someone could explain how to do the chart with detail: how to insert the values of the horizontal axis, to create the horizontal bar (the outlines) and the bar itself, etc
Hi Juan...
See this page for a tutorial on the chart - http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/12/17/quick-thermometer-chart/
[...] To-do List with Priorities using Excel [...]
Good Concept!
Downloaded it but, my Excel 2007 hangs and I have to recover it few times. Finally it opens but, everything is distorted.
Am I doing something wrong?
-DJ
Interesting idea.
You give e new way to track my actual planning.
But instead of using thermometer in this case, we can use a simple bar chart , with data is the total done.
Reasoning for that, with thermometer, you have to format all the small part of data with the same color. If you have more than 10 parts, it will take your time to finish.
I tested and it shown the same.
I'm searching for How to automatically add check box link to a new cells when we add new item?
Thanks for your interesting idea.
Thank you Peppe & Chandoo for sharing an awesome idea.
How do i increase the list ? I cant just drag down can I ? the check boxes perform the same way
VERY EXCELLENT THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
How do you increase the list? Formatting of the check boxes and shading etc does not copy correctly if using copy and paste or dragging cells down...
Thanks for this useful to do list.
I have the same question as TADOVN. This blog doesn't properly give instruction on how to add new task row. Following are my queries.
1) How do I add a new row?
2) If I copy paste the last row to create a new row, the check box get duplicated, i.e. if I click on the new check box on the new row, the previous check box also gets checked.
So the simple question is.. how do I add a new row so that it behaves the same way as other rows?
Thank you very much! Great to do list template.
Thanks for the template.
From an NGO organisation in Malaysia
Will someone please answer the question about how to add additional rows to this list? I love it, but this is a fatal flaw, as I frequently have many more tasks.
Thank you!
Below is how I added additional rows:
1) Select both columns H and N, right clicked, and clicked Unhide to reveal the formulas.
2) Select row 12 on the To Do List, copy it, and insert it below in the next row.
3) Change the 12 in cell C22 to a 13.
3) Drag your mouse and copy the formulas from cells I15, J15, and K15.
4) Paste the formulas below in cells I16, J16, and K16.
5) Right click on the check box in cell F22.
6) Click Format Control.
7) Click the Control tab.
8) In the Cell Link box, change the I15 to I16.
9) Repeat the steps above. (Change I16 in the Cell Link box to I17...I17 to I18, etc.)
10) If you are not seeing Format Control when you right click the check box, you need to make the Developer Tab available.
Leah,
If you follow my previous instructions, you still may need to go back and change the formulas in column K. They calculate the priority weights and go in consecutive order as you go down the column:
IFERROR(1/E10,0)
IFERROR(1/E11,0)
IFERROR(1/E12,0), etc.
Some of you who are more Excel savy may be able to figure out how to copy the formulas quicker. This is just the way I figured it out.
Thank you Dennis; I will try that!
I am sure I would love this and it will help me to accomplice my tasks efficiently . Thanks Buddy
How would I be able to delete one of the row (not use 6 for example) so it won't calculate it with the progress?
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Thank you so much for this post. I took me a bit to figure out how the checkboxes link to the rest of the sheet, but now that I've got it I've created a new page for every day so I can track tasks going forward. I've also added work tasks side-by-side with personal tasks. Once I did that I also thought it would be neat to see how productive I am week over week so I added a nice summery page. The summary builds on the percentage completion for personal and work tasks.
Love this template - so versatile and yet simple.
My next project is to get standard weighting for certain tasks so I don't have to keep remembering them.
Cheers,
Victor
I like this template. I may modify how the checkboxes work though for a couple reasons:
1) It's a pain to add more rows. If I want to add 10 more rows, it appears that I have to re-point each new object to the appropriate link-cell. Otherwise, they all point back to the copied row - checking one causes all of them to check.
2) I can't group and collapse rows in the checklist without all the objects stacking together and remaining visible in the lowest non-collapsed row. With a simple "x", this would be ok.
One solution would be to have a simple "x" instead of a checkbox object. I could just use an "x" to mark complete, and make the TRUE/FALSE based on an If formula (If "x" then TRUE; otherwise FALSE).
I downloaded the file, but it is a ZIP file with several subfolders and xml files. There is no workbook here. How do I open this in Excel?
thank you for the help and excellent ideas you share.
@Kris
Yes, Excel files are special Zip files that actually contain a number of files including your data
If the file opens like that save it locally as a *.zip file and rename it to a *.xlsx file
Open with excel normally
How do you change the color when it is completed....I have multiple companies and need to color code this template.
Thank you.
@S.F
Use Conditional Formatting
Hello! I have added additional rows, fixed it so that the check boxes work individually, AND made it so that the #% changes when each box is checked -- however the status bar won't move past the midway mark.
Any ideas on how I can get the progress bar to fill up the entire way once the list is complete?
If you right click the status bar, select 'Select Data' and go to 'Chart Data Range' and revise to include your expanded range. The bar chart colors may default to a predefined style. Right click the chart to reformat the Chart Area.
Or, to change the bar colors, I populated all rows w/ activities and rank and then left clicked the bar chart color that I wanted to change - went up to the ribbon under the home tab, selected the new bar color from the fill color dropdown.
Love the instant gratification of the status bar! Genius!
Thank you so much, what a great tool! God bless you for doing this for free!!
Awesome
Nice to show power of excel.
Over in the Chandoo.org Forums, Asshu has updated this witha VB Interface
Have a look and use if from: http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/to-do-list-vb-interface.28973/
Dear All,
There are good job done here & its very helpful for all.
God Bless You to you all for your valuable working.
Regards,
Chirag
Hi guys,
I've added additional rows, but the percentages in the thermo-meter don't reflect this when the boxes are checked. I'm lost with how to change this, so any assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Jake
@Jake
Can you please ask the question on the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
Please attach a sample file to simplify the solution
Hi Chandoo, how you do it for all this check list. it is using Excel VBA, I am not good it that.. still leaning part. and I was trying to figure out. Trying to understand all vba code and meaning and when I use which code.
do you have any guide line on this, i mean. Exp: dim is what, string etc:
for all this checking list does need to use VBA?
Thankyou
Peggy