Bucket sorting

Goofy — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:35:35 +0000

Did you ever come across a list of items that had to be sorted or grouped according to their “categories” or “descriptions” and wanted to do it a better way than cutting and pasting cells in an Excel spreadsheet or Word table? Note, I am not referring to numeric or alphabetic sorting, which those types of programs do very well.

Here’s a generic example of the problem: You have a random list of fruits and vegetables but you want to get them into their proper “buckets” or categories. In the real world, I have to deal with hundreds of “descriptive statements” that need to be grouped and organized. The defining and adding of categorical attributes to go along with each piece of data becomes a tedious, complex and time consuming effort in a spreadsheet or database.

Here’s what I do with NoteBook:

1. Start with the list on a Note Page in “NoteBook-A”. (Random list of fruits and vegetables) I usually import the data from a converted spreadsheet or word document.

2. Create a new “NoteBook-B” so you have both visible on your desktop.

3. Add Divider and Note Pages as desired according to the “buckets” you need. (Fruits Page, Vegetables Page) You can create these on the fly.

4. From “NoteBook-A” select the cell containing “apple” and drag and drop it to the Fruits Page on “NoteBook-B”. (The “apple” is transferred from “NoteBook-A” to “NoteBook-B”)

5. Go back to “NoteBook-A” and select the cell containing “carrots”, drag it to the Contents Card of “NoteBook-B” and hover over the Vegetables bullet. The Vegetables Page opens. Drop the “carrots” there.

6. Continue back and forth until it’s finished. You can easily do more manipulation and ordering now that you have the right things in the right buckets.

This has saved me so much time and frustration! I hate to admit, I used to print out and cut “flash cards”, sort them into piles, sequence the piles and then tag the item in a spreadsheet for numeric sorting! NoteBook…you guys Rock!