Well, maybe Excel didn’t actually save Hallowe’en, but it helped the Double Fine video game company allocate staff for their Hallowe’en game — Costume Quest.
In an interview at MTV, Tim Schafer, Double Fine’s president and CEO, described how the staff members, who had previously all worked on the same project, were split into four working groups.
"we let people fill out a form where they got to rank which game they worked on and then we also let the leaders on each team rank who they wanted on their team. We had this amazing Excel spreadsheet that, somehow, using algebra, or possibly calculus, decided the intersection of those two ranks to put everyone on the team they most wanted to be on and also where they were most needed."
Unfortunately, they didn’t share the Excel file or the magical formulas, but maybe you’ve done something similar at your own workplace. Or maybe that’s how you decide which of your children get to wear which Hallowe’en costume!
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Have you ever made your own jam? I’ve made strawberry jam a few times, and it’s delicious, but lots of trouble to make. It’s much easier to grab a jar from the grocery store.
Spreadsheets aren’t just for project planning at the office — it’s great for planning home improvement projects too. 
Do you ever go camping? My family had camping vacations every summer, when I was growing up, and Dad always had everything meticulously organized. Those were the dark ages, before spreadsheets had been invented, so he probably had our supply lists written on graph paper, or something equally high tech.
The local malls like to promote Christmas in July sales, so maybe you need a greeting card for this fake festive season.
If you spend most of your time sitting in front of a spreadsheet, you might suffer from a spreading waistline. You can 
If you find yourself running out of money before the end of the month, maybe a spreadsheet can help. If you don’t have the strength to put together a detailed personal budget, you could start by keeping track of your lunch costs.
Just because you spend the day in a cubicle, staring at spreadsheets, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a bit of entertainment. Along with your analysis of banknotes, you can enjoy a few musical notes.
