5 Tips To Boost Productivity And Proficiency In Advanced Excel

I received an email from Diana, an administrative assistant at a company. When joining the firm she was required to have a basic understanding of excel functions.  But now as she advances in her career she has huge, complex data coming in. she struggles with data errors and inaccuracy and it takes most of her time to rectify them. She wants to learn advanced excel functions to leverage at work. She believes learning how to analyze data in Excel with Excel formulas and tools will definitely ramp up the efficiency of her life.

No matter your current disciplines: education, research, analytics, business, or administration, excel can help transform your output and help you keep simple track of even the most complex data sets.

Here are a few tips I proposed to Diana that quickly deepen her understanding of Advanced Microsoft Excel.

1. Ability to master keyboard shortcuts

Using the mouse and keyboard to explore all the menus and different options seems convenient, but it’s often time-consuming. If you know the correct shortcut for the task at hand, you can complete it within seconds instead of minutes. This will increase your productivity and accuracy in the long term.

You are probably already familiar with using the functions of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste. Other useful shortcuts that can come in handy include; Ctrl+Z, to undo the last action, Ctrl+PgUp to switch between worksheet tabs, Ctrl+A for selecting the entire worksheet, Ctrl+F to find items, and Ctrl+K to insert hyperlinks.

2. Use of Power Query

Diana didn’t know how power query could impact her data manipulation. First, Power Query is a tool that allows users to connect to data outside of Excel and clean and manipulate the data.

Her learning how to use this tool can help her incorporate data from different sources into Excel and use other Excel tools to work with it.

Power Query is advanced due to the amount of data it allows users to analyze. It also requires users to understand data sources outside of Excel.

3. Utilizing Fill Handles

To increase your productivity, Advanced Excel provides features like AutoCorrect and AutoFill, so that you can type less and do more.

AutoCorrect corrects your mistakes like misspelled words and other typos automatically. You can enable this feature by selecting AutoCorrect in the Tools tab.

Similarly, AutoFill saves you time by automatically creating a numbered list when you are trying to create it manually. You can activate it by Edit > Fill > Series.

4. Master Excel formulas

One of the main ways I used to master Excel is to accomplish writing formulas. These are the muscles of Advanced Excel.

To begin, I learned some of the more commonly used functions. These include SUM, IF, VLOOKUP, COUNTIF, and CONCATENATE.

When I was comfortable writing formulas, I could do almost anything. I even used formulas within Conditional Formatting rules, charts and other Excel features to make them more powerful.

5. Advanced Excel training

Short courses give professionals the opportunity to advance their skills and knowledge at their own time and pace. You gain practical skills and update the knowledge needed in your career.

Excel certifications help improve Excel skills and increase your chances of short and long-term success. It can also help you land the job you want, even if that career choice isn’t digitally based.