Letting my kids get messy while eating is the cleanest decision I can make as a parent.

Allow me to explain.

Barak is right at the beginning of his super messy eating phase.

Amina is fortunately on the other side of her messy journey, where she feeds herself in a mostly clean manner. This not only keeps the mess to a minimum, it also frees up our time as parents to do other things while she eats.

Pretty awesome if you ask me.

If you lead a team, my advice to you is simple: let them get as messy as possible with their spreadsheets. Be sure to make copies first so they can make mistakes and break things with zero negative impact. Eventually they will become more proficient, independent, and clean with their spreadsheets. But first, they have to get messy!

To find out more about Excel team training, leave a comment with the word “messy” and I’ll hook you up with all the details.

#messyeating #patience #itgetsbetter #parentwisdom #backups #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

It is nothing short of remarkable for me to see my kids constantly exploring their environment and learning non-stop.

They instinctively push every boundary and test every limit to understand how things work. Whether it’s Barak playing with a bag of potatoes on the floor in the kitchen, or Amina forming a new & complex sentence with little regard to grammar (because let’s be honest, English grammar can be anything but intuitive sometimes), children are on a mission to learn and grow as quickly as possible.

As an adult, I can admittedly be a little impatient when I don’t learn something instantly. Fortunately, my kids remind me that it is a PROCESS, and that it takes time. Even though I don’t see the improvement as fast as I would like, the exploration is a key component of the learning process.

Even with zero guidance, if you just explore your spreadsheet, its vast number of features & formulas, you will learn.

Having said that, if you want to shortcut your learning process, I would be honored to be your guide on this sacred (albeit frustrating at times) journey.

#patience #learnbyexploring #parentwisdom #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

Sometimes the only way to resolve a cranky pants situation with my kids (or my spreadsheets) is to put on my detective hat.

I go step by step, isolate and test the variables, make small adjustments, and eventually solve the problem.

Cranky pants for my kids usually happens after they’ve been in one place for too long. To resolve, I mix up the environment, the activities/toys, check for a dirty diaper, etc.

Cranky pants for my spreadsheets usually happens after I make one critical change in the data structure, or even the name of a worksheet (if I didn’t set things up to be dynamic enough in advance). To resolve, I check each broken formula, make little adjustments, until it’s all working correctly.

If you’re in the middle of a spreadsheet cranky pants situation of your own, and would like an expert’s detective hat to help you resolve it, send me a message or leave a comment.

I’ll do an audit of your spreadsheet to find the obvious errors, and not so obvious ones, to save you time and headaches, so you can get back to your life.

#crankypants #detectivehat #excelaudit #avoidablefrusttation #savetime #parentwisdom #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

As a parent, I can’t help but think how much there is to know, and how many skills I need to have in order to set my kids up for success. It can be quite overwhelming, until I think about the 3 key areas that are essential no matter what:

1. Sleep
2. Diet
3. Activity

If these are the only things I do well as a parent, at the very least I will have laid the foundation for learning, growth, and all the more advanced and complex areas of my children’s development.

Similarly, Excel has no shortage of topics and skills, yet after 13 years I have found the 3 cornerstones of spreadsheet success to be:

1. Navigation
2. Formatting
3. Formulas

If these are the only skills you focus on, not only will you have a strong foundation that most people are missing, but there is no limit to why you can accomplish, and no unnecessary distractions from all the more advanced Excel topics.

Curious to learn more? Leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll share an assessment that measures your current abilities in these 3 Excel areas.

#disproportionatevalue #reduceoverwhelm #priorities #fundamentals #parentwisdom #excelwell #sharetheexcellove

Today I dropped my car off at the shop for the very first time. There were no visible signs that anything was wrong with the car, so why did I bring it in?

1. The dashboard had large orange letters that read “MAINTENANCE DUE SOON.”
2. In my CARFAX Car Care app it showed that it was time for an oil change and tire rotation. It also said some magical words about the importance of this kind of regular maintenance: it helps “avoid costly repairs.”

Sure, I love to be proactive and seek positive outcomes. However, I am EVEN MORE motivated to avoid negative outcomes, and I’m sure I’m not alone here. Very clever wording from CARFAX :).

With a recent 1-on-1 Excel Training client, I helped him avoid costly time wasting errors by creating a fairly automated process of downloading business credit card transactions and analyzing them from there, as opposed to manually entering transactions from a monthly PDF statement. This is merely a simple example of how using Excel efficiently can save you hours or days.

Ready to bring your spreadsheets in for maintenance with an expert, to avoid costly repairs later?

Leave a comment or send me a message so we can set up a quick call and determine if we’re a good fit to work together.

#proactive #carownertips #savetimeandmoney #automation #consultanexpert #excelwell #sharetheexcellove