Keeping track of manga
A part of me has often been interested in manga, but really avoided anything not finished - not even because of not being able to finish a story at my leisure, but because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep a track of where I got to in my head. Not only would I forget where I got up to, I'd forget entire series I'd been reading (and very much enjoying!)
I started looking up sites and web apps that would help keep track of things for me, because surely such a thing exists, right? I actually did dig into a couple, but then I had a realisation:
Wait. It would be so much easier to just make this in a spreadshet!
And folks, this is a thought I have regularly and am one of those "I will take any excuse to make a spreadsheet for something" sickos, but something about this specifically made me realise that actually, just doing this for myself would actually be less effort and maintenance than a website that purportedly does all this for me. Et voilà :
Nice and simple. The cell changes colour when I have something new to read. (For any colour blind folks, the Chainsaw Man cell is green)
Then, I can update the date and volume # for future reference! It's helped me massively and led to some nice surprises. For example, a new volume of Frieren! A happy coincidence - the cell is white because my formatting was just "date before x" or "date after y" but a new volume came out today!
Just a nice reminder that sometimes, trusting in your own system that works for you specifically can be better than signing up to another website.