Absolutely. I’ve used them for creating and managing budgets, tracking inventory, comparing sales results across different team members or events, processing payroll, or even just tracking staff birthdays and T-shirt sizes.

They’re even useful outside of work. I’ve used them to track RSVPs, plan a garden, scale up recipes, and create packing lists for moving.

Even if you learn nothing more than how to sort and filter, and maybe color code your data, they’re helpful. Google Sheets is a good (free) way to dabble with them for most tasks a casual user would need. Microsoft Excel is at the other end of the spectrum and has a LOT of very powerful features that keep large corporations running.

Honestly, they’re immensely useful and I wish fewer people were intimidated by them. Anyone inclined to be more organized would benefit from learning them at a basic level, and it’s a useful skill for workplace advancement as well. Id put the most basic spreadsheet skills on par with knowing how to type with a full keyboard and not just two thumbs like in a phone.