After a nice filling lunch at the Bronx Zoo, the kids finally went down for their nap! Naturally I took advantage of the “downtime” to explore the lesser walked paths, and create a mental map of one of my favorite places in New York City.

I love exploring like this when I have time, because not only is it a great way to relax and get the creative juices flowing, but it also helps me create a fuller picture in my head of where things are, and how things connect.

That way, next time I visit the zoo with the kids I will be able to efficiently navigate from the brown bears, to the giraffes, to the Jungle World exhibit without getting lost in the African trail. I don’t know about you, but I call that a win.

In Excel, I always recommend that when you receive a new spreadsheet, you take some time to explore the different sheets, formulas, data connections, etc. to familiarize yourself and create a mental map. Doing so will create a fuller picture in your mind, and allow you to easily navigate to the desired area, and even fix issues if they arise because you know where everything is.

Want some help creating a mental map of a spreadsheet? I may know a guy who can help :).

#mentalmap #openexploration #funoptimization #brownbear #parentwisdom #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

At the playground, my son Barak is once again on a loop. He is climbing up and down the steps, over and over again, and could not be more content in the process. It is beautiful to watch, and he is already showing signs of being my favorite kind of student – one who finds joy in practicing the fundamentals.

Once the fundamental skill of climbing up and down steps is mastered, Barak can easily leverage that skill to enjoy more advanced activities such as climbing up to and then going down the big slide. Super excited for him!

While not every student is built this way, I currently have a 1-on-1 Excel training client who is also exhibiting this same trait, and it is already serving him extremely well. For example, by mastering the building blocks of writing formulas he is able to apply those skills to an infinite number of possible calculations to solve his unique business problems. This approach will undoubtedly get him far in business and in life.

My hope for you is to not only practice the fundamentals, but actually find the joy in it. Doing so will help you continue to reap the benefits for the rest of your life of those fundamental skills.

P.S. Not even 10 seconds after filming this video Barak went all the way to the top of the playground structure, and went down the big slide. Thank you for proving my point Barak!

#practicefundamentals #babysteps #patiencepaysoff #parentwisdom #excelformulas #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

I am currently building a new Excel training program, unlike any other I have created before. Like with any creative & complex project, it requires a great deal of both planning and doing (i.e. the actual work of building the product).

Too much planning and I can easily get sucked into the perfectionism black hole.

Too much doing without enough planning and I can find myself spending weeks or months barking up the wrong tree by creating something irrelevant or unnecessary.

Even after running my business for the past 13+ years, I still find it challenging to strike the right balance of planning and doing.

What usually pushes me out of that mud, is giving myself just enough space to plan out a high level road map of where I am going. I may even flesh out a few of the initial details to help get the ball rolling. However, once I find myself getting caught up in too many details, I step back and remind myself that it’s time to start building.

The best part is that taking action, and actually beginning to build something will inevitably shed light on what aspects of the project are necessary, and which are in fact irrelevant.

Starting to build even before the full picture is clear gives me the space to adapt and course correct in a way that I otherwise would not be able to do.

Stuck in the planning stage? Stuck in the doing stage? Stuck in the process of finding a balance between the two? Leave a comment or a message and I’ll see how I can help.

#planning #doing #balance #bizownerlife #productivity #efficiency #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

After 2.5 hours I finally fixed our Baby Jogger City Select double stroller. After years of wear and tear the brake mechanism finally broke. Fortunately no children were harmed!

Big thank you to Baby Jogger for sending a completely new replacement brake mechanism at NO EXTRA COST. Just one of the many reasons we love Baby Jogger, and recommend them to every parent.

Couple takeaways from the experience:

1. There was a single point of failure in the brake cable, rendering the entire brake dysfunctional.
2. The process of replacing the brake was not as clear or intuitive as I would have liked.
3. Supporting your customers not only maintains trust, it also helps customers look past certain issues.

From the spreadsheet perspective:

1. If possible, build-in redundancies or backups for a single process/calculation, so that if one fails there is another one in place to seamlessly swap in.
2. Stress test your spreadsheets for common issues that might arise, and see if the process of fixing the problem is clear and intuitive. Create written step-by-step guides to fix, and/or bake in some extra clarity/instructions to make that process as intuitive as possible.
3. Support your clients/stakeholders. If you make a mistake, fix it at no cost to them. Failing to do so will break their trust in you, and rightfully so.

Happy strolling!

#strollerstruggles #backup #intuitivedesign #trustisparamount #parentwisdom #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

On the way to a client training session today I considered walking to the train station, until I remembered a quick and easy NYC transit hack:

bustime.mta.info

A website that lets you see the location of buses in real time, including estimates for arrival times. The best part is that this tool passed my AA Battery Test: it was both Accurate and Accessible.

Accurate because the bus was in fact less than 1 min away from my stop, and Accessible because it took me only a few seconds to find that out.

I have found that if you pass only one of these AA tests without the other, the net result is worthless.

Fortunately, this tool helped me make a better, more informed decision to catch the bus and save valuable minutes on my journey to my in-person client training session.

Turning to spreadsheets, there are a few tips to keep in mind with regard to the AA Battery Test.

ACCURATE Tips:

1. Leverage Formula Audit Mode (aka “Show Formulas”). This gives you a temporary view of all the formulas on your current worksheet, to help easily spot common errors and fix them.
2. Include intentionally redundant formulas to perform the same calculation using a different approach, and check to see whether the two answers are equal. This is a great way to double check your work and help ensure you are getting the right answer.
3. Stress test your spreadsheet to try and break it. For example, enter unexpected values into cells or try to interact with your spreadsheet in unexpected or unusual ways to see if it can handle it, and ensure you are still getting the right answers.

ACCESSIBLE Tips:

1. Organize & structure your data well. Create backups and versions of workbooks, clearly label your folders, file names, sheet names, column headers, etc, and fundamentally lay out your data in the way Excel needs to see it. For example, for data tables always use columns as types of data, and rows as individual instances or records of that data across all the columns/data types.
2. Format your spreadsheet well so it is free of distractions. Keep it Simple, Intuitive, Consistent, and Optimized (when it comes to formatting, be a “SICO”). I teach a 2 hour class just on this topic.
3. Acquire and maintain a baseline of knowledge and skills to accomplish fundamental Excel tasks. In other words, be able to get what you need done, or at least know how to learn more. I also teach a multi-part class on the fundamental skills of Navigation, Formatting, and Formulas.

So the next time you find yourself working on an important spreadsheet project, ask yourself “Does this spreadsheet pass the AA Battery Test?”

If this helped you, I invite you to share the excel love with someone who could benefit from hearing it.

#mtaforthewin #excelaudit #intentionalredundancy #stresstest #excelorganization #excelwell #sharetheexcellove