Time for our daily affirmations ✨

And how to sum cells in seconds

Hey you! Funny story—I had no idea it was St. Patrick’s Day last Friday. I kept seeing people wearing green and thought, “Wow, something is in the air today.” 😂 But once I saw the bars promoting Guinness specials and the four-leaf clover decorations I finally connected the dots. Better late than never! 🙃

Sum Cells in Seconds

It’s Friday at 4:56 PM. You’re about to head out and begin your weekend when your boss asks if you could “really quickly” sum up the company’s revenue over the past year.

Ugh. I have 👏 been 👏 there, and although this isn’t a super complicated task, it’s a time-consuming one. Chances are, you’re defaulting to this formula to find the total…

“=JAN!A2+FEB!A2+MAR!A2+APR!2A…”

…and so on until you’ve entered every month. It’s doable, but when all you want to do is go home and catch up on Daisy Jones & The Six (IYKYK), it feels extra tedious.

But this task doesn’t have to take forever! There’s an alternative to sum the same cell in seconds (try saying that five times fast).

Step 1) In the desired cell, type SUM and the name of the first tab. In our case, that’s =SUM(JAN .

Step 2) Add the colon, the name of the last tab, and an exclamation mark. The formula is now =SUM(JAN:DEC!

💡 Excel Tip: The exclamation mark (!) separates the sheet name from the cell reference. When you’re writing a formula that refers to a cell in a different worksheet, you need to reference the sheet name so Excel knows which sheet to grab.

Step 3) Write the cell you’re referencing (for us, that’s A2) and close your formula!

Remember, the cells you’re summing must all be in the same position across each worksheet or else it won’t work. For example, if January’s total sales are in cell B3 (but we’re referencing A2 in our formula) Excel won’t properly calculate the total.

The final formula is =SUM(JAN:DEC!A2)

And there you have it! This tip is one of my go-tos in Excel. You’ll end up summing the same cells across worksheets all the time, from consolidating financial data to tracking project progress to budgeting.

P.S. I’m hosting a free one-hour Excel class today and tomorrow! It’ll be packed with tips such as this one, plus a deep dive into data cleaning and analysis techniques. You can register here.

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Time For Our Daily Affirmations ✨

“I am beautiful. I am loved. I am abundant.”

I remember chanting those affirmations while staring at my reflection in the mirror at my parents’ house in 2020. Not going to lie, it felt a little weird. But three years later and I’m now a s-t-r-o-n-g believer in affirmations.

The idea is that by declaring positive things about yourself, you rewire your internal script for self-confidence and belief in your abilities.

This is important because that negative voice in your head (the one that says you “can’t wear that outfit” or “can’t post that video”) isn’t just constant—it’s the standard. This comment on Matt D’Avella’s YouTube video about affirmations sums it up perfectly:

Our thoughts influence our behavior and actions, which in turn influence our reality. If our thoughts are in a self-deprecating loop, we might struggle to break out of hum-drum cycles.

Affirmations interrupt ✋ these thoughts and instead let us focus on our strengths and aspirations. They won’t get rid of negative thoughts completely (I wish!), but they’re a step in the right direction.

The cool part about affirmations is that you can personalize them. In my case, I’m trying to become a more confident public speaker, so I’ve been using the phrase, “I am a people person and love performing.”

Your affirmation doesn’t even have to be a phrase! It can be as simple as high-fiving yourself in the mirror for a boost of self-encouragement (Mel Robbins wrote an entire book about this)!

Your subconscious thoughts play a huge role in shaping your reality. Affirmations are a simple way to rewire patterns and plant your mind with positive thoughts to help you bloom into your best self. 🌷

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A quick reminder of why you should spend part of each day in silence. 🤗

Stay Exceling,

Kat