Why attention is your superpower 💥

Hey hey! Here’s a wild story to spice up your Thursday: Williams Racing was reportedly using a 20,000-part Excel spreadsheet to piece together its racing cars.

Apparently, the monster of a spreadsheet was “impossible to navigate and impossible to update,” causing the company to lose its status and fall on hard times. 

BRB, adding this story to my list of why you should become proficient in Excel. 😅

Pivot Table Hack For The Lazy Analysts 

Do you self-identify as a lazy analyst? Don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss. 😉 But I will tell you about the Recommended Pivot Tables feature—which just might become your Excel BFF.

This tool analyzes your data and suggests several pivot table layouts that might be useful. 

Let’s walk through an example, starting with a basic spreadsheet of expenses: 

Not bad, but…there are simpler ways to view this data. Luckily, Recommended Pivot Tables will tell us exactly what those are. Here’s how: 

💡 Pro Tip: After selecting a recommended Pivot Table, you can still customize it! Use this tool as a base to save you time (and headaches) before adjusting it to fit your needs.

Attention = Opportunities

Let’s play a game: Find everything that’s red in this image. 🔎

You probably noticed the red notebook, candy, and pushpin. Great job! But…can you recall everything blue? 

Way harder, right? That’s because you channeled your focus on what was red and ignored everything else. This is exactly what happens when you miss out on opportunities because you’re focused on something else. 

For example: You’re having a hard time at your job, so you funnel your attention into finding a new job. You would:

• ➜ Notice the job listings on your local coffee shop’s bulletin board. 

• ➜ Find and message recruiters that aren’t in your exact niche, because you never know who they could connect you with. 

• ➜ See a LinkedIn post of a friend switching jobs as an opportunity to get a foot in the door at a new company. 

But someone who only pours their attention into hating their current job? They miss out on all of these opportunities—not because they aren’t there, but because they can’t even see them in the first place. They’re so focused on finding the red, they miss all the blue. 

This is why where you place your attention is so important. 

To be clear, the law of attraction isn’t an oversimplified belief that “positive thoughts always lead to positive outcomes” (reaching your goals is h-a-r-d). Instead, it’s about adjusting your focus to spot opportunities where other people miss them. 

Because oftentimes, they’re right in front of you: You just have to be willing to notice. 🔎

• Still manually creating bar charts? Let me introduce you to ✨ dynamic bar charts. ✨

• Boss: Ugh, this data is a mess. You: Hold my coffee. 

• Seven life lessons from a career coach who charges $3,700/month (I’m a huge fan of #7). 

• Listen to my episode on the HR Besties podcast to learn about my top Excel pros and no’s. 🙅‍♀️

• An Outlook tip for my digital nomads (timezones are tricky!).

Thanks for being here! Before we part ways: The Workbook just hit over 370,000 subscribers! Thank you for letting me in your inbox—I’m honored to play a part in your professional (and personal) growth. 🥲

Stay Exceling,

Kat