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3 Google Sheets Functions That Make Writing Easier
How to figure out your own algorithm.
When my daughter was learning to read, she asked why you could put any combination of numbers together and it would make a real number, but you can’t put any combination of letters together to make a word. Good question!
I’m a Libra, and I don’t really know what that means, but the picture next to the Libra horoscope is always of a scale. For me, it feels fitting because I’ve always felt like numbers and words occupy the same space in my head.
So maybe this sounds crazy to you if you’re not a Libra, but when I’m writing, I often think in terms of algorithms and functions. And when I’m crunching through data, I build equations like I would build a story.
In math, a function is like a machine. It takes an input, does something to it, and gives an output.
If you’ve ever written so much as a tweet or a letter asking your parking tickets to be forgiven, you’re kind of like a function. The inputs are everything around you — your ideas, your vocabulary, your skills, and your knowledge.
The outputs are what appears on the page. You — the writer — are the function that takes the inputs and pushes, shapes and molds them into some output.
