My top 2 productivity tips

Hello, hey, hi! If you’re one of the 50,000 people who attended my live Excel class last week: Thank you! I can’t wait for you to upgrade your professional life and become the Excel master you know you can be.  

If you didn’t get to attend, keep your eyes peeled: I’ll be announcing a new live Excel class for February soon! ✨

How to Locate Data in Excel (Even if You Don’t Have All the Info) 🔍

Have you ever needed to find something in Excel, but didn’t have all the information? 

True Excel wizards know the best way to search for a partial match in a list of values isn’t to spend hours manually combing through your data. It’s to use the XLOOKUP function with a wildcard.

💡 Hold up, what’s a wildcard? A wildcard is a special character that stands in for unknown characters in a text value.

Imagine you have the first three digits of a social security number. Your task is to identify the associated first name, last name, and account number based on those three digits. 

Let’s run through this step-by-step:

💡 The “IF ERROR” function tells Excel: “Try to use this formula. If it doesn’t work, show me this other thing instead.” The “other thing” could be a zero, the words “Not Found,” a wildcard, etc. This helps you avoid error messages, simplifying your spreadsheets.

Close your parentheses and you’re all set! The formula pulls the first name of the associated social security number. Just use this formula by changing the return arrays until you have all the information that you need. 

Two Simple Productivity Tricks I’m Loving 

Q1 has been intense here at Miss Excel Headquarters. 

This past week, I recorded an episode for the amazing Bossy podcast, planned our affiliate events for February, had a bunch of branding meetings for my new business (more details to come! 😇), and gave a talk to the Microsoft community on Business Building 101. 

In short: I’ve been pulling out all the productivity tricks to keep up. Today, I’m sharing my favorite two. 

1. Change Your Physiology. Ever had a super long to-do list, but just can’t muster the energy to tackle it? Whenever I feel this way, I remind myself of what Tony Robbins preaches, “Emotion is created by motion.” In other words, emotions are linked to movement in our bodies. 

When I need to go from “eh” to energized, I put on my favorite song and dance. Being physically in motion kicks off my mind—and soon, I’m ready to take on my to-dos. There are tons of ways to change your physiology: do a breathing exercise, take a cold shower, or just take a lap around the block. 

As Tony says, “Before you take control of your mind, you take care of your body.”

2. The Two-Do List. Before leaving your desk for the day, write down the two most important things you want to get done tomorrow on a Post-it. Then, close all your tabs. That’s how the next day you know exactly what you need to get done.  

This method forces you to identify the tasks that truly move the needle. We often stuff our to-do list with things of varying importance—and when we’re (obviously) unable to knock them all out, we feel inadequate or unproductive. 

The two-do list prevents that feeling and helps you prioritize your most important tasks. Two birds, one stone. 

Do you have a go-to productivity method? Hit ‘Reply’ and let me know! I’ll feature the best tips in next week’s newsletter. 🙌

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• I loved this podcast episode with Dr. Joe Dispenza! Learn how to be a creator of your life, break limiting beliefs, and more.

Thank you so much for being here! Have a beautiful rest of your week and I’ll see you soon.

Stay Exceling,

Kat