Q. Every month I have to prepare a series of activities reports listing tasks that need to be performed every day, every other day, every third day and every fifth day—four different lists. Is there a way to do it automatically?
A. It sounds like you’re doing the job with a word processor. If you set up the dates in Excel, you can automatically generate those lists with AutoFill and then, if need be, copy them to the document.
To generate a list of dates first format the cells the way you want to dates to appear—for example, either 2/1/05 or February 1, 2005. If you want consecutive dates, enter the first one and grab the lower right corner of that cell. As you drag it down, the subsequent dates will appear in the cell.
If you want Excel to list every second day, establish the pattern by listing the first three days and drag down the lower right corner of the last cell (see screenshot below). Ditto for every third day.
