You should quit more often 🙇‍♂️

Plus: The IMPORTRANGE function

October 05, 2023

Hello and happy fall! 🍂 It’s Q4, which means we’re heads-down here at Miss Excel HQ to hit all our goals before the year wraps up (can you believe it’s only 88 days away?!) I won’t share everything just yet, but we’re revamping the Excelerator course and I cannot wait to get it in your hands. Stay tuned!

A Round of Applause for IMPORTRANGE 👏

🗣 Please give it up for Google Sheets’ IMPORTRANGE function! This function lets you import a range of data from a different spreadsheet. Give yourself a preemptive round of applause for all the time you’re about to save.

Let’s dive into an example:

Say you’re a data analyst and you have access to the Q1 sales data of another company (let’s call it Cali Sunshine Real Estate ☀️). Your goal is to import all of the information below (cells A1 to D20) into your centrally aggregated spreadsheet.

However, you don’t want to copy-paste the data manually. This method is prone to errors, tedious, and a waste of your expertise. That’s when the IMPORTRANGE function comes into play. It’ll pull this data for you in a cinch—here’s how!

Step 1️⃣ Select any cell. This is where you will be importing the range (let’s go for B7 for our example!).

Step 2️⃣ Type =IMPORTRANGE and the spreadsheet URL. In our case, the spreadsheet URL is in cell B5, so our function is =IMPORTRANGE(B5

Step 3️⃣ Enter the range of the data you want to import. Because we’re doing the entire dataset, our formula is =IMPORTRANGE(B5,“Sheet1!A1:D20

Step 4️⃣ Close the parentheses. Our final formula is =IMPORTRANGE(B5,”Sheet1!A1:D20”)

Important to Note: ⚠️  The formatting isn’t perfect. The function sometimes won't transfer certain fonts or merged cells, so just be aware!

However, IMPORTRANGE redeems itself with this special quality: ✨ It updates in live-time ✨. For example, if Cali Sunshine revised Katherine Gomez’s sales from $75,000 to $200,000, our spreadsheet would automatically reflect that change.

No need for the team at Cali Sunshine to give you a heads-up! Now that’s what I call efficient communication. 😎

FYI: This tip came straight from my Sheets Smart course! Use the code SHEETS20 for a 20% discount if you’re ready to spend less time fumbling with spreadsheets and more time doing what you love. 📈

You Should Quit More Often

For most of my life, I saw quitting as a last (and I mean last) resort option. 🫠

Whether it was taekwondo, Irish step dance (I was an…interesting child), or a full-time job, the idea of quitting has always filled me with uneasy emotions. I ended up holding onto a lot of goals, projects, and relationships that no longer served me.

Then in January 2021, I had to challenge my beliefs on quitting. Miss Excel was starting to earn more money than my 9–5. While I loved my company and invested countless hours into my career, keeping the role didn’t align with my future priorities.

Instead of quitting being a “bad” thing, it was exactly what I needed to do to grow.

That’s when I realized: There’s power in quitting. To find that power, it’s up to us to flip our internal scripts from quitting being a “negative” thing to a “positive” one. Here’s what I mean:

Quitting as a Negative: 📉

  • ➜ Scarcity: “If I let go of [XYZ], I might not ever get it again.”

  • ➜ Ego: “I can’t quit! My identity is tied to [insert job, project, relationship, etc, here]”.

  • ➜ Fear: “I’ve heard the saying ‘quitters never win’ and don’t want to be seen as a failure.”

Quitting as a Positive: 📈

  • ➜ Growth. “My values have shifted and this doesn’t align with me anymore. I’m growing!”

  • ➜ Abundance. “There are more opportunities out there, and I’ll find what’s right for me.”

  • ➜ Knowledge. “I tried [XYZ], and realized it’s not for me. I’ve learned a lot!”

Ultimately, quitting is a neutral event—and we have the power to give it either a positive or negative charge. When you view it as a positive, you’re more likely to actually ask productive, meaningful questions: How have I grown? Is there something better out there for me? Is this giving up or moving on?

This lets you see quitting for what it can be: A force that propels you in the right direction, rather than a fear that holds you down. 💫

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Thanks for being here! Now here’s a reminder to go and get ‘em from this amazing fellow entrepreneur.

Stay Exceling,

Kat