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sometimes trying to write a formula can
be a bit like traveling without a map
how exactly do you take a problem from
real life and turn it into something
that Excel can solve what you might not
realize is that you already have the
skills you need to get there with some
planning some basic math and a little
knowledge of how formulas work you can
get a lot farther than you might think
say you're at work and your boss comes
to you with a problem apparently there's
an event coming up and 614 people have
already RSVP'd
unfortunately the venue only seats 550
so how many folding chairs are we going
to need to seat all the extra guests
like a lot of real life problems there's
actually enough data here to turn this
into a math problem you could even think
of it as a word problem remember doing
those in school so-and-so has 14 apples
she gives five of them away you know the
rest when it comes down to it all we
have here is a simple subtraction
problem one that you might even be able
to solve in your head just take the
number of people coming subtract the
number of seats at the venue and that
will give us our answer now watch we're
going to move the equal sign to the
beginning and with this one tiny change
it's now in a format that Excel can
understand for bonus points you could
even change the numbers to cell
references see how it works let's take a
look at the answer looks like we're
going to need 64 extra folding chairs
and because we used cell references we
can change the number of people
attending and the answer will update
automatically sometimes getting from
problem to formula is easier than you
thought it would be like you just saw
then there are times when you get stuck
somewhere in the process and you're not
sure how to continue the important thing
to remember is that you're still most of
the way there even if you're feeling
unsure you just have to break the
problem down into more manageable chunks
say you're this guy and you've been
thinking a lot about your finances
lately you want to save up enough money
to buy a brand-new totally awesome jet
ski here's the problem the jet ski cost
$6,000 you're planning to raise the
money over time by saving a hundred and
ten dollars each month how many years
will it take to save the full amount
even at a glance you can tell this
problem is a little different from the
last example for one it's going to take
more than a simple subtraction formula
to figure it out
let's try breaking it down instead we
are talking about how many years this is
going to take maybe we should figure out
how much we can save in a year based on
what we're setting aside each month the
formula might look something like this
monthly savings times the number of
months in a year a simple multiplication
problem and the answer is but not too
bad one thousand three hundred and
twenty dollars per year now that we have
this number we're just one step away
from solving the problem all we have to
do is create a second formula that
divides our goal by the amount that
we'll be saving each year before we
continue notice how we've really thought
this through
instead of writing one big formula we
wrote two smaller formulas and that
makes the problem much easier to handle
okay it's the moment of truth
looks like it'll take about four and a
half years to save enough money for the
jet ski man that's a lot longer than I
thought it would take maybe you can buy
a used jet ski the truth is there's no
formula for writing formulas but that's
okay
the journey from point A to point B is
rarely as treacherous as it seems sure
there might be some issues along the way
you might run into a problem that you're
not sure how to solve but remember you
already know more than you think you do
that's the key to solving real-life
problems in Excel