Pro tips
2 Work your workdays
1 Track time
Numbers has some unheralded, yet fabulous, functions to help plan projects. Its NETWORKDAYS function returns the number of working days between two dates, and automatically excludes weekends. So, =NETWORKDAYS (“15/6/2020”, “30/6/2020”) returns 12. Add any bank holidays or other breaks at the end of the parameters; =NETWORKDAYS (“15/6/2020”, “30/6/2020”, “22/6/2020”) excludes 22 June from the calculation. Use this to more effectively plan projects or work out chargeable time.
A related project management gem is the WORKDAY function. This calculates the number of working days before or after a given date. It also excludes weekends and any other days you specify. If a project were to take 20 working days and begin on 30 June, you’d enter =WORKDAY (“30/6/2020”, 20) to see its expected end date. To calculate the number of working days before a date, use a negative value as the second parameter.
3 Choose a data format
Numbers cleverly applies data formats to cells’ contents, but it’s often best to specify one in the Format inspector’s Cell tab. You can also force data to a particular format using functions, such as DATE, TEXT and TIME.