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I asked Google Sheets and Excel experts: “How did you get started with spreadsheets, Excel, or Google Sheets, and how have these tools impacted your work or career?”
and I got following responses. I hope you find them helpful and you learn something to get better in Google Sheets and MS Excel.
Andrew Kamphey from bettersheets.co
Here’s how I got started with spreadsheets, Excel, or Google Sheets, and how these tools impacted my work or career:
Initially I was a filmmaker, working in the video department of a cruise ship. While I worked there another job became available that was managing a network of touchscreens onboard.
I took that role and ended up become an Excel user because I had to enter in Excel the daily activities of the entire ship, every day.
At one point I figured out that a subset of screens, being used as digital billboards, could be run off of one Excel document but I had to get input from about a dozen different departments. What I could have done was request the data from each department and then enter it myself. But I was lazy. I learned how to use Excel VBA and then gave each department their own spreadsheet to use. The automations did the work of transcribing each department’s data into one central sheet that powered the screens.
What literally would have taken a few hours each week turned into a few seconds of double checking the data output. And just generally making sure the hardware was up and running. Instead of being forced to sit at a computer, I could interact with each department and make their lives easier and faster to update the data, while literally just walking by the screens to make sure they were up and running. My job became a LOT easier and better just because of the Excel VBA automations.
The biggest challenge came when I left that job, and a year later I was working in a company that used Google Sheets. I knew there was something like Excel VBA in Google Sheets, but I didn’t know how to use it. I ended up googling and reading blogs every day for 5 years. Still to this day, a decade later, I’m learning something new almost every day.
That initial use of Google Sheets was prompted by someone after work complaining about something in Google Sheets. My advice to anyone. Make sure you actually listen and try to do something about people’s complaints. I tried to help and ended up on a whole new career path. And that first 5 years of using Google Sheets was a masterclass in building for users. I sat in the office while people used the sheets I built. I made fixes and updates on the fly, as quickly as I could. Ended up running multiple departments daily work in Google Sheets.
The advice I have is to solve problems, not just learn spreadsheets. Listen to those around you and try to solve their problems.
Adam Steinfurth | SheetsHelp.com
I started using Google Docs when it was owned by Writely in the late 2000s. Google bought Writely in 2009 and, around that time, brought Google Sheets into the Google ecosystem. I was attracted to Sheets because it was free and could store my files in the cloud.
Google Sheets used to be slow and only handled smaller spreadsheet files. It wasn’t common to always have access to the internet, so using cloud-based apps was difficult when connectivity was intermittent.
Learn from others when you first start to avoid any bad habits. Watch how people reduce the chance of errors by constructing easy-to-read formulas with limited inputs. If the spreadsheets feels overly complex it probably is. Simplify! Larger, older companies will be using Excel instead of Sheets. Most of the functionality is the same. Learning Excel helps you learn Google Sheets.
Nicole Hullihen | xecutethevision.com
I got started using Excel 15 years ago as a brand new strategy analyst. I’ve learned just about everything it can do and it’s been job security at each place knowing how to present data to make decisions.
Spencer Farris | spencerfarris.me
I started using Excel as a teenager working in my dad’s business, later running all the Excel files for a loan agency and then a call center. This included building specific macros and inter-file connections. When I started college I intended to go into Accounting and especially enjoyed the spreadsheet side of it. Later I worked at another call center that used Google Sheets rather than Excel and it needed some cleanup, which I offered to do and fell into the rabbit hole of ARRAYFORMULA(), QUERY(), and Google Apps Script. Quickly I started answering questions on the Google Product Forums and was invited by Google to become a badged Product Expert. I never looked back and now work as a Google Sheets, Apps Script, and Workplace consultant, based on that experience and passion.
Yogesh Shinde | YogeshShinde.com
One day I was working and saw a task assigned to my co-worker – “Learn VLookup”. It looked interesting to me and tried the function and I thought it some kind of magic. I was not aware about lookup formulas and then slowly slowly I learned filter function and how to nest different functions together. This is how I learned Google Sheets and still learning new techniques from various sources. I became a go-to person when it comes to Google Sheets and managing tasks and projects within Google Sheets.
I think there are many things that I don’t know and there is always scope for improvement. This constant urge to learn different formulas and functions helped me whatever I am today. I wanted to share my knowledge with other spreadsheet enthusiasts that’s why I created a blog and YT channel where I share Google Sheets tricks, trips, hacks and lessons.
CONCLUSION
Everyone has different story when it comes to Excel or Google Sheets. Both overlap core functionalities and that is why it is important to learn these functions to become an expert spreadsheet user.
Don’t stop learning formulas and functions there are many possibilities like Appsheet and Google App Script that can help you mange and automate many day to day tasks.
I hope you liked this round-up and I am looking forward to your stories.
What’s your story, how did you get into the world of spreadsheet? I would like to know.
