The Excel wildcard nobody taught you 🔍

Hey! Let’s play two truths and a lie: Microsoft Excel Edition. Try to see if you can find the fake: 

1. Conditional formatting can color-code based on formulas 

2. Excel can only handle 100,000 rows per sheet 

3. Ctrl + ; inserts today’s date and Ctrl + Shift + ; inserts the current time 

Keep reading for the answer!

Find Data in Excel With Only Half the Info 🔍️ 

POV: HR emails you with an urgent request. 🚨 They need details on a specific employee to fix a payment issue, but all they have are the first three digits of their social security number: 675. 

Finding that person would be simple…if your company database didn’t have hundreds of employees. 🫠 Instead of scrolling through rows manually, let’s use XLOOKUP with a wildcard! 

“Wait, what’s a wildcard?” A wildcard is a special character that stands in for unknown characters in a text value.

Here’s how it works: 

Done! Excel found the person’s first name. Want their last name and account number too? Just adjust the formula with the column you’re searching in!

The Case for Going Quiet 🤫

Early in my business, I thought the path to success meant absorbing as much business and self-help content as I possibly could. I devoured podcasts, read books, and scrolled LinkedIn 24/7 for “inspiration.” 

Every commute, every lunch break, every walk had to be filled with information. Then one day, I went for a stroll and forgot my phone. (The horror!) 

But on that stroll, ideas flooded in. New courses for Miss Excel, TikToks for teaching PowerPoint tips, and clarity on how to handle a difficult conversation with a team member. 

That walk was the catalyst for realizing that quiet moments are when all that consumed information becomes actually useful. 

This goes against the common belief that progress only comes from being “on” all the time. If you’re not reading something, listening to something, or just doing something, you’re not advancing. 

But the reality is that progress can’t happen without you also doing nothing. It’s in those phone-free walks and meditation sessions that your brain has the space to process and turn all that input into output. 

Chances are, your next breakthrough probably won’t come from yet another podcast or audiobook. It might already be inside you: You just need some silence in order to hear it. 

Now, if you don’t mind, your girl is off for a phone-free walk. I’d encourage you to do the same. 🤍

• The sneaky survival instinct sabotaging your goals from coming true (and exactly what to do about it). 

• Declutter your Outlook inbox in 10 seconds with Snooze. 💤

• If you know this chart trick, you’re ahead of 99% of Excel users. 📊

• The 10 best shortcuts in ChatGPT (number six is my favorite!).  

• Your project trackers will never look the same after learning this Excel tip.

Thanks for reading! Catch the lie? It was #2. Excel actually handles over one million rows per sheet (1,048,576, to be exact). Never underestimate a good spreadsheet. 👀

Stay Exceling,

Kat