The book “Who Moved My Cheese” teaches us how to navigate changes in life and work. The central theme of the book is change. It focuses around one idea and that is CHANGE. In this book cheese is used as a metaphor for things we want in life and business. Change is inevitable.
The book has a short and sweet story that reminds us of the basic elements of life, such as being alert and noticing changes around us.
It’s a very short book which anyone can read in a day or in one go. If you are a new reader then you should start with this book.
Here is a abridged version of the story,
In a maze, there were 4 little characters looking for cheese. Cheese can be anything that you want in life—happiness, a job, a relationship, or simply peace. Two mice, named Sniff and Scurry, and two little men, Hem and Haw, had one thing in common: every morning, they raced for cheese in a maze.
Sniff and Scurry followed trial and error to find the cheese station. Eventually, they all found the cheese station at Cheese Station C. After that, they followed the same routine. Hem and Haw assumed the cheese would always be there and became lazy and secure. Sniff and Scurry noticed the cheese supply was getting smaller before Hem and Haw did.
One morning, all four of them noticed there was no cheese. Sniff and Scurry weren’t surprised as they had already observed the supply was getting smaller. They immediately started their search for a new station. Later that day, Hem and Haw arrived at Cheese Station C. When they saw there was no cheese, one of them said, “Who moved my cheese?” The next day, Hem and Haw still expected to see cheese at the same station.
Sniff and Scurry found a new cheese station after trial and error. Haw started to imagine new cheese, but Hem was skeptical and made Haw hesitant too. Haw wanted to move on to search for new cheese, but Hem remained scared and doubtful.
Haw wrote on the wall: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Eventually, he started to seek a new station. He wrote things on the walls to remind himself of these lessons. Finally, he arrived at a new station, where he found several pieces of cheese. He asked Hem to come, but Hem still wanted comfort and the old cheese.
Haw kept finding bits of cheese here and there. He let go of the past and continued looking for new cheese. Eventually, he reached a new cheese station where the mice were already present. Haw decided to change faster next time. He explored new areas in the maze and made it a habit to inspect the new cheese station regularly.
It’s a very short brief of the book. To buy book from Amazon click here.
We will discuss those lessons later in the blog. But what this has to do with Google Sheets? Let’s see.
Changes are inevitable in business and life. We can’t predict change but we can be prepared for these changes.
When I think about “change” in the context of spreadsheets, the feature that instantly comes to mind is Conditional Formatting. Why? Because just like life, data in spreadsheets is dynamic.
What is conditional formatting?
Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight certain values or make particular cells easy to identify. This changes the appearance of a cell range based on a condition (or criteria). You can use conditional formatting to highlight cells that contain values which meet a certain condition.
When we think about change in spreadsheets, conditional formatting stands out as a key feature.
Common usage of conditional formatting:
- Highlight due dates or deadlines.
- Highlight maximum or minimum amounts.
- Highlight ranges.
- Highlight if a cell contains any value.
There are many ways conditional formatting helps you in your day to day operations.
For example planning your project in Google sheets, you can highlight delivery dates based on how far or close the deadline is.
The most frequent use of it is to highlight duplicate data in the dataset with conditional formatting. It highlights duplicate values so you get to know values are added twice in the column or row. Here is a short video of how to achieve it.
Lesson from “Who Moved My Cheese” Applies to Spreadsheet Management
The book emphasizes the importance of being alert and adaptable to changes in life. It suggests noticing changes around us and taking necessary actions to navigate through transitions effectively
Let’s explore how we can use its principles with effective spreadsheet management. If you are one of those people whose prime tool is spreadsheet to manage projects, tasks and data then this blog post will be helpful for you. These lessons also apply to data management and visualization.
By implementing these principles you will have a stress-free experience while managing large data within Google Sheets.
Lessons learned from “Who Moved My Cheese”.
- Change Happens – they keep moving the Cheese
Book: In the story, four characters finds out there is no cheese on their regular cheese station. It conveys the messages that changes happens in life.
Spreadsheet: In spreadsheet collaborators make changes to the sheet. You should check version history or turn on notifications to monitor changes.
To turn notification go to Tools and then in click on notification settings.
Then select “Any changes are made”.
Check “Email – straight away” to get notified on changes.
You can watch following video to Get Emails on Changes.
One thing if you want to get notified if someone changed something in your important document you can get notification so you keep track of things happening and changing. It keeps you alert so you proactively take actions based on changes that have occurred.
Pro Tip: Get Notified About Changes
If you manage critical documents, enable notifications to receive alerts about edits. This keeps you proactive and in control.
- Anticipate change – Get ready for the cheese to move
Book: In the story mice observe the cheese is getting lesser everyday and they have to find new cheese station. They anticipated change and started investigating new cheese station.
Spreadsheet: In spreadsheet we can anticipate or forecast the result based on historic data. For example we can see and anticipate stock prices with help of Google Finance function.
- Monitor Change – Smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old.
Book: In the story, mice monitors cheese and were ready to find new cheese. They were carrying their shoes together and also used to investigate cheese station.
Spreadsheet: Monitor changes with cell history or with charts with the help of data. You can also use trendline or sparkline functions to monitor how changes are happening.
For example: with sparkline and Google Finance function you can monitor your favourite stock price.
- Adapt to change quickly – The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese.
Book: In story one of the man resist the change and hopes the cheese will come back but instead he should have adapt to change and started to find new cheese stations.
Spreadsheet: the quicker you learn Google spreadsheets the sooner you can enjoy the benefits of its features and functionalities.
- Change – Move with Cheese.
Book: As per book advice we should move with cheese. Change is part of life and instead of wishing for things we want, we should take efforts (change) to achieve whatever we want in our life.
Spreadsheet: Google workspace introduces new features now and then and you should be aware about those changes so you move with cheese (time). Be future ready with changing yourself. Follow blogs and YouTube channels that help you stay alerted about new Google Sheets trends.
- Enjoy change – Savour the adventure and Enjoy the taste of new cheese.
Book: In the book context, enjoy the process and the new cheese.
Spreadsheet: Enjoy change with conditional formatting and other Google sheets features. Keep your data up-to-date, stay alert, monitor changes and make change management and easy to manage jobs.
CONCLUSION
The lessons from Who Moved My Cheese are not just life advice; they are practical principles for spreadsheet management: anticipate, monitor, adapt, and enjoy change.
So have you learned anything from the book Who Moved My Cheese that helped you with handling changes in sheet or with your life.
The book is about change in life and if you are one of those people who likes to use spreadsheets in Excel or Google sheets to manage personal and work projects in Google sheets. You can know the importance of knowing change, anticipate change, monitor change, and be ready for changes in life and work.
Google Sheets and MS Excel functions, formulas, and features allows us to do these things. Google Sheets and MS Excel empower us to anticipate, monitor, and adapt to changes
Not only conditional formatting but version history, cell edit history, getting email notifications on changes, these features and functions are really helpful to deal with change in Google Sheets and Workspace.
I have created several videos that you can watch on my YT channel.
I am working on project change management spreadsheet template that you can see in the near future on our template section.
Let’s move with the cheese—and with our spreadsheets!
