Turn a Date Into Its Day of the Week in a Spreadsheet

If you keep dates in a spreadsheet and want to know what day of the week each one falls on, you do not have to look them up one at a time. One formula handles the whole column. The spreadsheet is probably the most underused tool on most desks, and this is one of those small tricks that saves real time once you know it.

The one-formula way to do it

Say your dates sit in column A and you want the weekday in column D. Click cell D1 and enter =TEXT(A1,"dddd"), then press Enter. The cell turns into the full day name, like Monday, for whatever date is in A1. Grab the small square at the bottom-right corner of that cell and drag it down, and every row fills in on its own. That is the whole trick, and it works the same in Excel and Google Sheets.

Small as it is, this is the kind of thing that adds up. We run our own operation on spreadsheets too, and the time saved by knowing the tool instead of fighting it is real. If your team leans on spreadsheets for jobs they have clearly outgrown, that is usually a sign a better-fitting system is worth a look.

Book a call if you want a hand getting your everyday tools working harder.