In A1 = 0
In A2 =IF(B2=***,"",AVERAGE($A$1:A1)*2+1)

Dragging A2 down as far as needed.

In C1 = 1
In C2 = C1+1

Dragging down C2 as far as needed.

In D1
=IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(C1,$A$2:$B$40,2,FALSE)),"",VLO OKUP(C1,$A$2:$B$40,2,FALSE))

What this does essentially is take a lot of data and remove the gaps. I use
this *alot* for things like productivity for example, where you only want a
list of what has been done. Or maybe where theres a list of dates, and only
applicable dates what to be used (say a Vlookup in column C that see how many
hours are worked, so the dates with 0 in C don't count)

Is there an easy way to simplify this? The way im doing it is simple and
effective, but the sheets im ending up with are starting to get too big, 1 I
did recently was 17meg to end up with a little table....
Even if you can't make the entire thing smaller, my main worry is the
AVERAGE(A2:A7)*2+1 which seems quite clumsy.