Excel Productivity Tips

For business owners and administrative professionals alike, the ability to use the computer program Excel quickly and effectively is key. Excel provides a wide range of data-organization and analysis tools that allow you to work with data like never before. In this blog, we’ll cover some of the most valuable Excel Productivity Tips to help you quickly manage and conceptualize your data like never before.

1. Excel Keyboard Shortcuts – Microsoft Excel offers many keyboard shortcuts that allow you to complete a task with just a couple quick taps on your keys, without searching for the action in the menus or buttons in the program. By using shortcuts, you can save yourself valuable time and increase your productivity by quickly moving from task to task. A few of the most frequently used Excel keyboard shortcuts include:
   1. Selection: To select an entire row in your spreadsheet, hit Shift+Spacebar. To select an entire column, hit CTRL+Spacebar.
   2. New Line: To start a new line of text in the same cell, hit Alt+Enter.
   3. Function: To insert a new function in your workbook, hit Shift+F3.
   4. And more! See the full list of Excel keyboard shortcuts here.
       
2. Functions – Instead of doing your calculations by hand, utilize the many functions available to you in Excel. These functions help do the math for you automatically and are programmed to constantly update as you add or remove data in your sheets. Taking the step to set up functions in your Excel spreadsheets will save you significant time by reducing the need to crunch the numbers by hand. Some of our favorite functions include:
   1. Basic Functions: Excel offers many basic functions, including sum, count, average, percentage, etc., that can help you quickly analyze your data.
   2. “If” Statements: You can program Excel to help you find certain cases within your data. For instance, if this cell’s amount is greater than that cell’s, then the result might be “good”. If the opposite is true, then the result would be “bad.” You can set your outputs to be coded as whatever result you wish.
   3. “And” Statements: Similar to “if” statements, you can find cases where if this and this are true, your result will be recorded.
       
3. Pivot Tables and Charts – Your data is only as good as how well you can display it and convey it to others. By utilizing pivot tables in Excel, you can quickly showcase your data in a wide variety of ways to help others visualize the numbers. By learning how to utilize pivot tables and charts, you can quickly transform your data without spending too much time creating graphs, charts, and more by hand. Learn more about how you can use pivot tables and charts here.

The Excel classes at Digital Workshop Center are among our most popular courses for business owners, business administrators, and those searching for a new career. Our classes are offered in Fort Collins and Denver, Colorado, as well as online, and are designed to help users of all levels better utilize the many features and time-saving tricks in this powerful program. We’ll teach you our favorite Excel productivity tips to help you make the most of this program.

Excel is essential to any administrative or office position, as well as for small business owners. It has become so vital to the business community that it is often seen as a basic requirement to help any job applicant get back into the workforce. Click here to learn more about the many Excel classes we offer at all levels. Upon completion of our Excel training, you will be able to quantify your data and create valuable reports, as well as leverage all the Excel productivity tips to make sure you can efficiently utilize this program.