I like to play with numbers. Good thing I switched my major to Accounting, right? In any case, what’s one of the most important numbers to any student? That’s right: their GPA.

A few semesters ago I sat around wondering what my GPA would look like if I were to get an ‘A’ in X Class and a ‘B+’ in Y Class. I didn’t understand how Credit Hours and all that stuff worked. So, I pulled up some information online and realized it’s much simpler than I first imagined… but it still takes a bit of manual work to sort things out. So, like most of my problems, I decided to solve it with Excel.

Admittedly this isn’t a revolutionary tool or anything beyond a few formulas. But, it certainly helped me play with the numbers. I could tell how well I needed to do this semester in order to stay on the Dean’s List. Being an IB kid I guess I worry about silly things like that…

As you can see I’ve put in the necessary columns: course code, name, credits, grade (enter letter grade to get numerical score), quality points (score x credits). All I have to enter is the code, name, weight and then the letter grade. The rest will compute itself.

My understanding is that many colleges approach grades this way. If you’re in high school then all your classes would have a credit of ‘1’ except for AP classes which would be more (again, depending on the school).

In any case, I’ve sent this to a few friends and they’ve found it particularly useful for keeping their own records. Plus, as I mentioned, you can play around with grades and see how well you need to do in upcoming courses.

Notes: I added 30 hours to the Cumulative Credit Hours at the bottom (IB credit), you might want to take that out. If you need more semesters simply copy the Spring 2007 box, right click row 45 (empty row below it) and ‘Insert Copied Cells’ and select ‘Shift Cells Down’. From there you’ll need to make sure the cumulative GPA (furthest right) includes the new grades. Go into the cell and notice how the two sums are simply column F divided by the total credits in column C. Just add a comma and include the first grades/credits. Repeat for any other semesters added. Additionally, if your school has different values for the letter grades then simply unhide columns H and I. If you look in column K I also pointed to the values of only my business classes. This way I could compute my Business (Degree) GPA. In any case, check the formulas and have fun printing out your own report card!

As always, shoot me your comments, questions and/or suggestions.

Click here to download Grade Report.xls

[tags]grades, college, school, report card[/tags]

You may or may not remember this productivity tool I’ve created. It’s simple, really. When I originally posted about it I wasn’t sure how I’d even use it and what the best methods would be. Now I can confidently share my Weekly Schedule tactics with you.

I’ve done some measuring and discovered the amount of time I waste sitting around or reading the news or doing some other un-productive tasks. Sometimes I lack motivation, other times I lack direction. This was an attempt to force myself to get as much done as possible each and every day.

The point of organization is not to simply organize, but to spend a little bit of time now in order to save a lot of time (or frustration, or energy, or whatever) later. In other words, there has to be some sort of benefit to your organization. For me, I was going to spend maybe 30 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday to sit down, look at what I have scheduled for the week and then fill in the gaps. This is how I planned to get more reading done, work out regularly, etc. By filling in the gaps I should always have something productive in front of me. Keep in mind I didn’t want to turn myself into a woaholic, I scheduled my “fun activities” like TV, blogging, playing Zelda 64 and checking email.

Anyway, let’s talk about the tool itself. It’s, as I mentioned, a simple full-page paper of the entire week split into 30 minute segments. Each row is 6 hours, 4 rows per day. My goal was to make sure each box was filled. These boxes only take up the left half of the page though. The right is dedicated to notes and any extra detail necessary. See below:

As you can see the tool is flexible for your needs. For some, a simple at-a-glance reminder is sufficient. For others, like myself, I’d like to plan out my entire week. Thus, I used some light colors and filled in the cells. Gray is sleep time, yellow is for meals, etc.

It’s Friday at noon, I know to look at the third line because half the day (two lines) has already passed. I should have lunch and then spend no more than an hour on email and blogs. After that I can tell I’m planning on reading and then heading to the gym. Easy as that. A few colors and some time spent planning means I don’t sit there and wonder ‘Hmm, should I go work out now? Well, I just ate, maybe later? Hmm, I haven’t played Nintendo in a while. Eh, but I should read I guess. Ah heck, I’ll just go take a nap.’

Instead of debating with my present self I can delegate the task of deciding to my past self. I’m a pretty diciplined guy but I know that when faced with a situation, like many humans, we’ll take the easy route. Thats why diciplined-Saturday-morning-scheduling-Devin made this schedule, he knew what was best for me.

It may not be for everyone but I like it because it’s pretty flexible. Some people prefer paper/pencil, others like technology. Either way I hope this can help someone else be more productive! As always, I appreciate comments, questions and suggestions.

Click here to download WeeklySchedule.xls

If you want to quikcly search for something on a page you can simply type ‘/’ and it will pull up the ‘Find’ toolbar. If you’ve ever had to search a man page you shouldn’t have a problem understanding this one. I used to have the option ‘Begin finding when you begin typing’ enabled but that quickly annoyed me when I’d accidently hit a letter and loose my place while reading.

I pulled a MacGyver tonight as I was faced with a dilemma. I decided I wanted to use my keyboard tray. Unfortunately my wireless MCE keyboard needs line-of-sight to communicate with the receiver. So, I mounted the receiver on the back of the desk with a binder clip, staple, and a twist tie. Go check out the photos, it’s genuis really.

I was looking at David Seah‘s excellent tools the other day. I was inspired. I had been thinking about revising my daily schedule and I came up with the following tool in Excel: the Linear Week Schedule.

I basically laid out the week in 30 minute blocks. Each row is 6 hours. Now you can see the entire week starting at midnight on Sunday. This seemed useful since our days run into one another (and I know my day doesn’t stop at midnight). This is what David did with his Compact Schedule. It shows the week along a line, not in seven seperate chunks. I found his idea to be pure genius…

As you can see there’s plenty of whitespace for leaving notes, a todo, etc. I figure I can use this space for all the extra notes and things I need to get done throughout the week. Plus, I can get into more detail if needed (meeting location, time, room number).

I also tried using Excel to color-code my regular events (sleep, eat, school, etc). This way I can see at a glance when I’m planning on doing certain things. At the same time, there’s room to include written events if need be.

Obviously, this can be as detailed or as simple as you’d like. Be creative and let me know if you found this useful. I was just toying around and figured somebody else might be able to use it. Anyway, I’m off to start planning out my week…

Click here to download WeeklySchedule.xls

Quick Tip: If you’re under 21 and have no 25+ year old friends to get you into Dave and Busters, walk behind a group and pretend you’re with them. ‘Nuff said…

Sick of getting credit offers that you never initiated? I get at least 3 credit-card offers each week. There’s an easy way to stop these:

I wouldn’t have noticed this offer was available to me if it weren’t for this new regulation requiring a statement in “12-point type – on the first page of the offer” letting me know I can stop unsolicited offers. You have the option of having your information removed for 5 years or permanently (you must mail back a form). If you’re wary of giving up your information you can read this page from the FTC.

The FTC also points to this website used for deleting yourself from direct marketing mailing lists.

So… what are you waiting for?

When you look at stress in the long-run you’re no longer ‘dealing’ with it but merely ‘managing’ it. If you’re prepared to become stressed then you won’t be shocked when it hits. These are some thoughts I’ve compiled:

Develop phyiscal resiliency: Many sources suggest a healthy, controlled diet. Some things include eating less sugar, reducing caffeine consumption and avoiding alcohol. Personally, I don’t drink nor consume much caffeine so this could be one reason why I never become as stressed as my coffee-inhaling peers. Additionally, I’ve read a lot about eating a healthy variety of foods. Nutritionists often recommend the following:

• 5 or 6 servings of fruit and vegetables
• 4 servings of bread or cereal
• 2 servings of milk, cheese or yogurt; and
• 2 servings of protein such as meat, eggs and beans

This is a big area I could improve. I’ll be starting a personal journal to monitor my eating habits but in the meantime, Askmen.com has a list of the top 10 stress reducing foods.

Develop psychological resiliency: The simplest way to overcome stress is to develop ‘hardiness’ (The Hardy Executive). I’ve realized that I am a very ‘hardy’ individual. For many, it’s easy to feel like they’re losing control. This may be due to any number of things (competitive drive, impatience, etc.) which often compose someone with an ‘A Personality’. The problem, though, is these things typically compound the problem. On the other hand, someone who’s hardy often approaches stressful situations optimistically. But, it’s not entirely clear what hardiness is. According to Developing Management Skills (Whetton) hardiness results from:

• feeling in control of one’s life, rather than powerless to shape external events;
• feeling committed to and involved in what one is doing, rather than alienated from one’s work and other individuals; and
• feeling challenged by new experiences rather than viewing change as a threat to security and comfort.

This really isn’t that easy to accomplish but somehow it’s the mentality I’ve developed over the years. Perhaps just by considering the definition alone one can strive to achieve ‘hardiness’. I wish I knew, though…

I honestly feel my psychological resiliency sums up why I never become stressed. Would you tend to agree, Shivani? Hey, I’m starting to eat a bit better too, I bet that helps…

I don’t remember where I stumbled upon these little tricks but I’ve found myself quite the nifty habit:

Whenever I want to pull up a website (ie, www.devinreams.com) I just type ‘devinreams’ in the address bar and hit Ctrl-Enter. Both Firefox and IE fill in the http://www. and .com for you!
Think of all the time saved!

Bonus: Firefox does the same for .net and .org with Shift-Enter and Alt-Enter, respectively! Reason #1837 why Firefox is so much better!

…ah, who am I kidding? I can’t think of one top-level site I visit daily that isn’t .com.