Close your eyes and think about the last time you found yourself wrestling with a complicated Excel workbook.
Did you rise to the challenge, maneuvering through rows and columns with wizard-like ease? Or did you retreat under your desk and weep quietly until Larry from IT could bail you out?
Whether you’re a spreadsheet rookie or a certified expert, Excel is packed with incredibly robust tools designed to make you an absolute productivity machine.
How does automating your most tedious tasks sound? How about transforming your entire workflow with a few powerful functions?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for my 6 favorite tips to help you master Excel formulas & functions and revolutionize the way you work.
If you’ve ever found yourself grinding through painstakingly tedious tasks in Excel and thinking that there must be a better way, you’re probably right. Excel is an absolute powerhouse for automation, but only if you know what you’re doing.
One of the most powerful and effective time-saving tips is to nail your reference types — especially when you’re working with a large number of formulas and functions.
Fixed and relative references determine exactly how formulas behave when you copy them to other cells in your workbook, and allow you to “fix” cell references that you don’t want to change (i.e. $A$1) while allowing others to shift or slide along with the formula.
Why is that so important? Because it means that you should never find yourself typing up the same function over and over from scratch. By optimizing your cell references from the start, you can minimize (and often eliminate!) the need for manual tweaks.
There’s simply nothing on this earth more badass than an Excel user who has mastered the art of keyboard shortcuts. Period.
Eyes locked on the screen, fingers gliding over the keys in a furious blur, these cubicle rock stars navigate even the most complex reports and spreadsheets without even breaking a sweat.
The secret? Mastering CTRL shortcuts and ALT key tips.
Instead of clicking through the Excel ribbon in search of specific tools or functions, these shortcuts allow you to access them instantly. Want to jump to the last cell in a table? CTRL-Arrow. Repeat the last action? F4. Paste special as values? Alt-H-V-V.
Not only will you work smarter and more efficiently, but you’ll impress your co-workers with your ninja-like skills. Win-win!
“This course is great! It covers a wide variety of formulas, with tons of clear examples. This is the kind of course you don’t want to end.”
– Miguel Hernandez
Translating raw data into meaningful insight is an extraordinary skill, and one that companies pay top dollar for. It’s difficult enough when you have clean and simple datasets to work with, but downright daunting when it requires blending information and exposing patterns across disparate sources.
But have no fear; Excel’s got your back.
Powerful functions like VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH (along with new tools like Power Query and Power Pivot) make joining and blending data from multiple sources an absolute cinch.
It’s time to stop manually stitching records together, or wasting hours copying and pasting values across worksheets. With lookup and reference functions, Excel does the heavy lifting for you!
So Gary in Marketing sends you an Excel doc with client names, customer IDs, emails and phone numbers for your company’s monthly report. No sweat, right?
Sure, but the only problem is that what Gary sent is an absolute disaster — formatting is all over the place, numbers are stored as text, and critical client information is buried deep within the customer ID strings.
Thanks a lot, Gary.
This is where most Excel users would top off their coffee, let out a deep sigh, and begin the long, tedious process of manually disentangling the rat’s nest in front of them. But you, being the Excel wizard you are, know better. In fact, you know that this is the exact type of challenge that Excel text functions are designed to solve.
For example, you know that UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER functions will instantly convert your text strings into the correct case, and that TRIM will eliminate the pesky invisible spaces wreaking havoc on your formulas.
And of course you know that you can use powerful functions like MID, SEARCH, LEN and SUBSTITUTE to surgically extract the information you need from your customer IDs, even when they aren’t in the format you expected.
You – 1. Gary – 0.
“Everything about this course exceeded my expectations. Presentation, content, and activities were all clear and well explained. The kicker was the additional homework exercises, which were a great opportunity to actually practice what we learned. You won’t regret taking this course!”
– Steve O.
Nothing wins over a crowd of C-level execs more than a well-executed, dynamic dashboard. Why? Because it’s a simple, elegant way to display complex information without drowning everyone in raw data.
Excel gives you everything you need to create beautiful dashboards from scratch.
Conditional stats functions like SUMIFS and COUNTIFS let you to filter and segment your data, conditional formatting options help bring your data to life, and tools like data validation and form controls allow you to easily embed interactive user controls and dynamic visualizations.
The best part? You can easily design these dashboards to automatically update as new data flows in, without lifting a finger!
Now if you really want to up your game, pulling live, real-time data into Excel will earn you some fans for sure.
While it might sound complicated, functions like WEBSERVICE and FILTERXML make it easy to tie into to real-time data streams such as weather conditions or stock quotes — all within Excel.
This functionality is ideal for accessing public data sources or extracting specific components of a data stream, without ever touching the raw data itself. Add this to your arsenal and you’ll be one step closer to achieving Excel wizard status.
So now that you know my top 6 Excel productivity tips, what’s next?
If you’d like to dive deeper, check out my best-selling course: Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions.
Join today for only $29, and get lifetime access to exclusive content including downloadable project files, course quizzes and homework exercises, and 1-on-1 instructor support — all with a 30-day money-back guarantee!
This course gives you a deep understanding of the advanced formulas and functions that transform Excel from a basic spreadsheet program into a dynamic and powerful analytics tool. While most Excel courses focus on simply what each formula does, I teach through hands-on, contextual examples designed to showcase why these formulas are awesome and how they can be applied in a number of ways. I will not train you to regurgitate functions and formula syntax; I will teach you how to THINK like Excel.
If you’re looking for ONE course with all of the advanced formulas and functions that you need to know to become an absolute Excel ninja, you’ve found it.
Joanne Han
“I just love this course. I think of myself as an advanced user and I’ve taken many courses over the years, yet there are still tidbits I am still learning from Chris that I can apply to my day-to-day job. My previous employer sent me to a course that cost $2,000/day, yet that course was a waste of time. The quality of instructional videos, the homework materials, and caliber of the instructor is so much better than the other courses I’ve taken. I also appreciate the humour and personality of the instructor. Thank you!”
Kevin Cook
“Excellent course and instruction! Learned a lot of new useful chart and dashboard techniques. Taught in a way that’s easy to follow. Enjoyed it very much!”
Daniel P. Venti
“Chris is outstanding. Best excel courses on Udemy, hands-down.”
Valarie Pelissero
“I always learn so much from Chris Dutton’s courses. I learned so much about charts that I didn’t know before, and am looking forward to trying them out. I’ve already finished the Advanced Excel Formulas course and am looking forward to his Pivot Table course.”
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