This user has built a functional, well-organized project tracker, tabs for each production, progress indicators, a system that works. And yet they are asking for something that, on its surface, sounds like a technical leap: a single tab that automatically surfaces every task due this week from every other tab, no matter how many new productions get added later. They are not asking for a miracle. They are asking for a spreadsheet that behaves like a smart assistant instead of a static filing cabinet.
Our take is plain: this should be possible without writing a single line of code, and the fact that it feels out of reach is precisely why the tools we use need to change. The user is right to be frustrated. They are competent enough to build a tracker that works, but not competent enough to build one that thinks. That gap is not their failure. It is the failure of traditional spreadsheet design, which forces users to either master arcane formulas or accept manual workarounds. The user explicitly says they cannot be bothered to learn another platform. That is not laziness. That is a reasonable boundary drawn by someone who already juggles multiple tools and simply wants the one they use to do more of the heavy lifting.
What this user describes is a classic cross-sheet aggregation problem. In a traditional spreadsheet, solving it requires either a series of INDIRECT and FILTER formulas that break when new tabs appear, or a scripting language like Google Apps Script or VBA. Neither is accessible to someone who learned on the job by testing things out. But an AI-native spreadsheet should treat this as a natural language request: "Show me every task with a due date in the current week, pulled from all tabs, including any tabs I add later." The system should handle the structure. The user should handle the work.
This is not about replacing the user's existing sheet. It is about extending its intelligence so that the summary tab becomes a live command center rather than a manual chore. The user already has the data. They already have the logic. What they need is a tool that can traverse their tabs, recognize date fields, filter by the current week, and update automatically, without requiring them to become a programmer. That is the promise of an AI-native approach: the spreadsheet adapts to how you work, not the other way around.
The practical next step is to look for a spreadsheet tool that supports natural language queries across sheets, or to use a helper function like QUERY in Google Sheets combined with a simple script that refreshes on open. But the deeper point is this: the user should not have to ask permission for this feature. It should be a default capability. If your spreadsheet cannot pull a weekly to-do list from its own tabs without a workaround, it is time to explore a tool that treats your data as connected, not isolated.