Of all the apps we've learned about thus far, I am most familiar with Google Sheets. A couple of years ago I was looking at all the budget planners for sale out there and was thinking about purchasing one, but I just couldn't find one that did exactly what I wanted it to do. I decided to set out and make one, and spent a weekend buried in YouTube content, trying to come up with something that worked for me. I settled on Google Sheets as the platform for the budget and got to work to create the budget template of my dreams. I succeeded to a certain extent, but it's still not where I want it to be. I'm trying to learn more little by little, and I'm making small changes over time. I envision eventually having a multi-tabbed spreadsheet where the numbers populate between the tabs, with money categorized and tracked by fixed bills, variable expenses, and sinking funds, various savings goals being charted, debt reduction goals being kept track of, and comparisons of monthly income and expenses, as well as a detailed description each month of all spending. Meanwhile, what I created does the basics of what I'd like it to do, and it's really helped me keep track of our finances, as well as helping clients keep track of their own finances in a basic way.
I learned some new things about Google Sheets during this week's lessons that may help in getting my budget tracker closer to where I want it to be, as well as things that can help me collaborate with clients more as we work on their budgets together. I had not known about freezing rows and columns before, which could really come in handy in working with a longer page such as all of the spending for the entire month. Another thing that I didn't know about that will help on longer pages is filters and filter views. Absolute references are another new concept for me, and they will definitely come in handy as I share information across multiple tabs. I'm also looking forward to exploring the prebuilt tables. I think there could be one there that will come in handy on the spreadsheet, and I know there are some that will work well with other areas of my business and life. I also really like that you can put comments and notes in cells, as well as assigning action items. Those should be very helpful in communicating back and forth with my clients if I have a question or want to call their attention to something.
I didn't actually know that Google had a meeting app, so I enjoyed learning about Google Meet. I like the way that it integrates across the other Google apps, and I can see myself using it to virtually meet with clients if we can't get together face-to face. It seems like a really handy and simple way to schedule a meeting and meet with clients, all through the same platform that we are working on and scheduling our lives with. It seems that using all of the apps we've been learning about together will help create a seamless and streamlined work and communication flow.
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