Our Snowman…
I hope everyone was able to dig out from the snowstorm yesterday. Myself, I live in the country with a very long driveway that I depend upon a local farmer to clear for me. He was busy keeping his commercial clients cleared out so I was effectively snowed in with my three kids…
In between making snowmen and gingerbread cookies, I worked on an Excel spreadsheet for a client. This is when I realized that a tool I use all the time may be useful to all of you out there in small-business land.
Excel on Steroids by Alchemex is a weekly newsletter I receive in my email that gives me helpful tricks in Excel and beautiful step-by-step instructions on how to do them. Although I consider myself fairly proficient in Excel, there is always one more little gem that I didn’t know how to do. I recommend subscribing to their service (which is completely free) and also taking advantage of their YouTube demonstrations.
Other popular YouTube channels for working with Excel are: the Excel Magic Tricks, Slaying the Excel Dragon, and Excel is Fun. You don’t have to be an expert in Excel to follow their simple step-by-step demonstrations that frequently include a copy of the sheet they are using so you can play along with the video.
Remember, if you are working in Excel and you are doing a task that is repetitive and time-consuming, and you say to yourself “There MUST be a better way!”. Chances are there is a function in Excel that is going to do what you want… you just have to find it! And Excel on Steroids by Alchemex is a great place to start. Here’s what I learned how to do yesterday: