I was making an excel spreadsheet to track sales at work. Each day has two shifts. This means that I need to create a series of dates, duplicated. For example, there would be two entries for 3/1/2012, two for 3/2/2012, and so on. I was trying to figure out how to make the software do that for me.
I tried googling the issue, I tried searching the help files, I tried everything.
Then, someone suggested I try this. "Create the dates for the range that you need. Then duplicate the dates. Then put the dates in the same column. Then sort by date. Tada!"
It took a fraction of a second for it to sink in that something so obvious should have occurred to me in the beginning, but never did. I'm so used to the software making it happen for me that I'd forgotten the low-tech methods of doing things sometimes work just as well.
