If you're looking to speed up your
spreadsheet workflows or just looking to get some more tips on how to become
a faster worker in Excel or Google Sheets, then this video is just right for you.
I'm Ivan with Simple Sheets,
and in the this video we're going to be talking about the top five spreadsheet
habits that are slowing you down and some ways on how to fix that.
Remember, a job listing includes the phrase a fast paced working environment.
There's a good chance that your day to day would look like this.
So having all these tips and tricks
in your back pocket would better equip you to stand out in a good way in your office.
As a rule of thumb when creating spreadsheets, you might want to minimize
the amount of time you are using this on your mouse.
As almost all of Excel's functionalities
and tools are bound to a keyboard shortcut,
using keyboard shortcuts in the smaller picture can help you save seconds.
Seems underwhelming, right?
Take for example, a simple copy paste.
It only takes about a second or two to copy paste data from one cell
to another using the keyboard shortcut CTRL C to copy and CTRL V to paste.
If I were to use my mouse to copy
and paste, it takes an upwards of 5 seconds or more.
The time it takes gets proportionally longer as it gets more complicated.
In the short run, you save seconds.
But when you build bigger and bigger spreadsheets,
those seconds turn into minutes and those minutes turn into hours.
Hours that you could be using up
for something else, like eating out or watching Netflix.
I'll even need reference that you can use
to check out all the keyboard shortcuts that you'll be needing.
Alternatively, in your Excel file, you can press the Alt key and it shows
the key tips which can point you in the right direction.
You can also check out our YouTube shorts
and Instagram reels that talk about a few useful Excel shortcuts.
Next up is sleeping on Helper columns.
Helper columns are cells that we use as a sort of conduit for our data.
Sometimes they contain calculations, sometimes specific values.
This helps speed up your workflows in a couple of ways.
First, formulas can sometimes get complicated.
So instead of creating one incredibly long
formula that includes all of your data cells, you could compartmentalize your
formulas over a few different cells, which later on you can hide.
An advantage of this approach is that it
helps you better organize complex formulas.
It helps you avoid volatile formulas such as array formulas.
And if and when something does go wrong and you see a hash and a error,
it greatly helps you debug your formulas so you can quickly route out the problem.
Values errors, like the circular reference
error become more common when your formulas get more complicated.
Ever seen a spreadsheet eat itself after creating a huge circular reference?
Yes, it's not a pretty site.
You can check out our video all about
circular references in Excel, and the link will be linking down below.
Secondly, using simpler calculations in a different cell requires less system
memory to run than if you created one extremely long formula so your potato PC
doesn't rest in peace the moment you press refresh coming off from number two.
Suppose you went the long and complicated
route of using volatile functions or referencing numerous tables across sheets.
A huge time waster is whenever your data is disorganized or even dirty.
Dirty in the sense that the values contain
nonprinted characters, doesn't follow your agreedupon formats,
or has misplaced or erroneously entered data.
Dirty data isn't only a huge pain to look at, but it can also be the cause of errors
appearing or worse, the wrong values to be returned.
You can check out our video on some ways.
You can easily and automatically clean our data using functions and helper columns
that we'll be linking in the video description.
Cleaning up our data and organizing our
data tables brings us to our next habit, which is not naming tables and ranges.
Excel allows you to easily name tables and data ranges for tables.
Simply head into the Table Design tab,
and in the leftmost group you can enter a new name for your table.
You can name them anything you want as long as you subscribe to Excel's naming
rules that I will flash on the screen right here.
To create a named range, we can select our data column.
We can then use the keyboard shortcut CTRL F three to open the name manager.
This opens up the name manager.
This is where we can see, edit, and remove our named ranges.
As we can see here, our table is already on there.
Press New and it's here where you can set
the name scope and double check if it's referring to the right thing.
Then press okay.
And there you have it.
Now, how does this exactly help us work faster?
If anything, it just added an extra step.
Imagine your coworker asks you, hey, where can I find the unit cost of our sales?
Of course, the unil answer would be oh, just look at sheet four f one two F 44.
Now imagine the one asking the question is now, your Excel formula,
would you rather be creating a VLOOKUP and one by one entering the references
needed when you can simply input the name grains?
Not only will you create formulas faster,
but it also greatly helps other people understand the formulas you created
without having to use trace precedence or trace dependence.
Lastly, your Excel files are probably carrying more than it should be.
Of course, these are apart from formatting essential formulas and the design.
But as we mentioned earlier,
your spreadsheet and your computer would greatly benefit from going lean.
Keeping your Excel file size down
increases reliability, so you're not praying to every got out
there whenever you open a spreadsheet before a big meeting.
Having a file that also uses up less
system resources also greatly helps Excel run objectively faster.
Not only that, you can now also use
that freed up computing power to run different apps while you work.
For more information on this,
I'll be linking our how to Remove Formulas in Excel video, which talks about helping
you cut down on the unneeded megabytes that your spreadsheet carries.
Want to know a surefire way of speeding up your Excel workflows is by using
a template specifically a Simple Sheets template.
We do the heavy lifting, and all you have to do is plug and play.
Make sure you check out Simplesheets Co
for more information about our 100 plus Excel and Google Sheets templates.
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I'll see you on the next one.