Excel has some functionality that Google Sheets are missing that is used in this particular use case. More specifically, it has a primitive called Table. After you set up your data as Tables, you can then reference whole columns as Table1[Column1] and it also fills your formulas down as you add more rows.
I don't want to defend Excel too much, as it is not ideal in many ways. Nevertheless, over time, I found myself using it more and more to prototype and visualize data. With magic features like Pivot charts, Flash fill, and Data tables you can hammer out a one-off "app" in a matter of minutes.
I made Plain Email [0] just because I couldn't find any email client with clean work flow without distractions. I use it pretty much every day. Thinking about open sourcing it - just can't find the time to refractor it nicely.
I also built news aggregator 10HN [1] with throttling (ten best articles every morning and every evening). I use it daily and it helped to fight my procrastination a lot. It's also interesting to watch the data how stories evolve and get popularity.
Some time ago I built https://10hn.pancik.com/ to aggregate and rank interesting articles and make them easily readable on the phone. There are days when I don't read anything else, just swiping through 10HN reading few long reads.
That way I have enough time to think and question whether I really want to open the page I was about to open, and I don't disable the whole thing if I actually need to visit it.
I discovered that using https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfepp... to add a delay before opening the time-wasting website actually works better when trying to procrastinate less. Waiting 60 seconds before Fb loads gives you enough time to think about whether you want to visit it, but is also not so inconveniencing that it would make you disable it straight away when you actually want to visit the site.
Defer forces you to book a time in your calendar instead of "snoozing" the message just so that it reappears later. Actually, snoozing was one of the most exciting features I saw in Mailbox, but after using it heavily I realised I get plenty of messages on Monday morning back to inbox and I just snooze them again. It turned to be a complete disappointment for me
That is actually very interesting. I was wondering how Pocket (or any readitlater service) could operate if that was the case. I did this mostly for myself so didn't think about it much
I don't want to defend Excel too much, as it is not ideal in many ways. Nevertheless, over time, I found myself using it more and more to prototype and visualize data. With magic features like Pivot charts, Flash fill, and Data tables you can hammer out a one-off "app" in a matter of minutes.