Utah Community Learning

AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, and when you'd actually want them

Okay sooo. We've got SUM down, we've got the basic math operators down, so now let's add three more formulas to the toolbox. These three: AVERAGE, MIN, and MAX. They're small, they're fast to type, and honestly they answer questions people ask me all the time without realizing there's a formula for it.

Why these three and not, like, twelve more

Here's the thing. There are a hundred formulas in a spreadsheet program. You do not need most of them. You need the ones that answer questions you actually have.

AVERAGE tells you the typical value in a range. MIN tells you the smallest. MAX tells you the biggest. That's it. No trick to it beyond that.

AVERAGE

Say you've got a column of your electric bill for the last twelve months. You want to know roughly what you pay a month, not each individual bill, just the general "what should I budget" number.

Click into an empty cell below or next to your data. Type:

`` =AVERAGE(B2:B13) ``

Swap B2:B13 for wherever your numbers actually live. Hit enter. Done. That's your average.

One thing to watch: if you've got a blank cell in that range because you forgot to log a month, AVERAGE just skips it, it doesn't count it as zero. Which is usually what you want, but it's worth knowing so a gap in your data doesn't quietly throw off the number and you don't notice.

MIN and MAX

Same idea, same shape of formula. MIN finds the smallest number in a range, MAX finds the biggest.

`` =MIN(B2:B13) =MAX(B2:B13) ``

For that electric bill column, MIN would tell you your cheapest month, MAX tells you your most expensive one. Around here that's usually going to be a summer month for AC or a January when it's actually cold enough up the canyon that the furnace is running nonstop. Not gonna lie, our place has a January spike every single year and I still act surprised.

Where this actually gets useful

Here's where I want you to slow down for a second, because this is the part people skip. Don't just slap these formulas onto a column because they exist. Ask yourself what you're trying to know first.

If you're tracking grocery spending, AVERAGE tells you your normal week. MAX tells you the week you way overspent, which is useful because now you can go look at what happened that week. Maybe it was a Costco run that stocked you up for a month, in which case the "overspend" isn't actually bad, it's just lumpy. That's the kind of thing a raw list of numbers won't tell you but one formula will.

If you're tracking something like a kid's naps, or workout times, or how long a recipe actually takes you at our elevation versus what the box says, these three formulas start doing real work fast.

A quick real one from my house

I ran a stretch a while back where I had three Relief Society things back to back in one week, on top of the regular kid chaos, and by Thursday I had nothing left. I actually canceled plans with a friend by text because I just did not have the gas in the tank. I keep a note now, right in the front of my birthday notebook, that just says "batteries," so I remember I'm not endless and I need to actually watch for that instead of pretending it doesn't happen.

If I'd been tracking my week somehow in a sheet, hours committed versus hours I actually had, AVERAGE would've told me I was already over my normal load by Tuesday, and MAX would've shown me exactly which week broke me. I don't track it that granularly, honestly, that might be more sheet than the problem needs. But I think about it every time I teach this formula, because it's a good example of numbers that would've warned me if I'd been looking.

Try it yourself right now

Open whatever sheet you've got going. Pick any column of numbers, doesn't matter what it is.

Click an empty cell below the column.
Type =AVERAGE( and then click and drag over your numbers, or type the range like B2:B13.
Close the parenthesis, hit enter.
Repeat with MIN and MAX in the cells below that.

Look at the three results together. Does the average feel right based on what you already know about that data? If it feels way off, check that you selected the right range. This is the same kind of mistake we've talked about before, a formula quietly pointing at the wrong cells, running fine, giving you a wrong answer that looks like a right one.

Before next time

Pick one column of real numbers you already have in a sheet, doesn't matter which, and run all three formulas on it. See if the MAX surprises you. Mine usually does.