Brought to you by:

Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #367, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

For my birthday this year, my wife bought me a half-day fly fishing lesson. I had previously tried casting with a fly rod a few years ago in Wyoming, and have been keen to have another go ever since.

As a middle-aged dad, my life is, well... maybe a little... predictable. In a good way. Family, work, exercise outdoors, eat, sleep, and repeat. It's a wonderful, simple life.

Somewhere along the way though, it's easy to forget what it feels like to be a true beginner. To try something new, outside our comfort zone.

For me, fly fishing certainly fits that bill.

It's humbling to be a total beginner, burning with enthusiasm but intimidated by the opaque language of this new world, and its steep learning curve. But what a privilege to be starting anew, with all the attendant joys of learning still ahead.

Thankfully I had a guide, Wayne, to simplify the process. He distilled this complex sport into small, bite-size steps, helping me understand both the big picture and take the first micro steps.

Standing in a field, with the rod held horizontal in front of me, I drew it quickly backwards—but not too far—over my right shoulder. Then, crucially, paused, to let the line unfurl behind me. Next, I shot the line out in front of me with a swift forward swing of my arm, all the rotation happening at the elbow joint. Easier said than done.

Moving to the creek, there were even more variables to consider.

A rainbow trout sat in a shallow silt bed in the crook of the stream bend. After some practice, I managed to get a fly in front of its face a few times, but it didn't even flinch.

Under Wayne's guidance, I tried other sections of the stream with a variety of different flies, but no joy.

I came away empty handed. (Anglers call this getting "skunked".)

Was I disappointed? Of course. In my head, I had visualized hooking into a perfect rainbow trout.

But on reflection, a bigger picture emerged.

I had spent a morning outside in beautiful surroundings, immersed in the act of learning, absorbing knowledge like a sponge. I didn't look at my phone once, or worry about work emails.

I was fully immersed in something new. In a flow state.

In the end, the real gift wasn’t the fish, it was choosing to learn something new.

So whenever you find yourself learning a new skill, whether it's fly fishing or even a new Google Sheets formula, cherish that act of learning.

Now, I've got to figure out how to catch that first fish...

➜ News

I.
The one job AI won’t replace is the spreadsheet guru - an interview I did with Fast Company:

​Read it here >>​

II.
​Google launched a direct-to-BigQuery import tool for Google Sheets. This tool lets you import giant CSV files of any size—ones that were previously too large—through the Sheets interface.

​Read more here >>​

Brought to you by: Quadratic Meet Quadratic, the Modern AI Spreadsheet for Data Analysis Unlike AI bolted onto traditional spreadsheets, Quadratic is a native AI spreadsheet built for speed, clarity, and effortless analysis. 🔹 Connect data from CSVs, Excel, PDFs, or live databases. 🔹 Describe what you need, and AI agents clean, analyze, and visualize data automatically. 🔹 Under the hood, Quadratic writes real Python and SQL you can inspect. 🔹 Familiar interface, faster insights, no formulas required. Other tools help you chat with spreadsheets. Quadratic helps you escape the painful parts entirely. Join 200k+ professionals making the switch. Try Quadratic for free

➜ Sheets Tip #367: Turn lists into groups with the WRAP Functions

Last week, we saw how to use TOCOL to combine groups into a single list.

Today, we're looking at the opposite direction: turning lists into groups.

Suppose we have a list of names in column A, like this:

We want to split the list into 4 groups of equal size.

We can use the WRAPCOLS function to do this very easily:

The first argument is the list (e.g. the range A1:A25), the second argument is how many items in each column, and the final argument, which is optional, is what to pad empty cells with. If you omit the final argument, you'll see the "#N/A" error message. So let's put "TBD" instead.

This works! But notice how the final group only has 4 names in it, and 3 empty cells padded with "TBD".

Let's try WRAPROWS instead, which will result in more even sized groups. Where WRAPCOLS specifies how many items in each column, WRAPROWS specifies how many items to put in each row.

In this case, we want 4 items in each row:

And, as you can see in this image, the 3 "TBD" cells are shared across 3 groups, so we have move even sized groups:

Now you know how to go from lists to groups. (And with last week's tip, how to go from groups to lists!)

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. Mountain biker shocked by this bear on the trail (sound on)