How To Get Better At Excel: The Excel Metaskills
How To Get Better At Excel? It’s Not About Fancy Formulae!
People often overlook the crucial skills that bind everything else together. These are not fancy formulae or obscure coding techniques, they are much more fundamental than that.
In this livestream, Steve and Chris explore what the Excel Metaskills are, why they are important, and how to implement them in your practice.
Metaskills are founded on metacognition – the capacity to think about how you are thinking about your work. Yes, it’s thinking about thinking, which is why it’s ‘meta’!
A reflective practitioner practices metacognition. Don’t worry about the big words: if you are thinking about your strengths and weaknesses in Excel, you are already practising the metaskills. So, let’s get into it!
The Metaskills are as follows:
1. Know What To Do When Things Go Wrong
– fix formulae
– debug VBA code
– do an internet search to find information
– fix formulae
– debug VBA code
– do an internet search to find information
2. Appreciate Pros / Cons Of Different Approaches
– Understand pros and cons of
* formulae
* pivot tables
* VBA
– Understand pros and cons of
* formulae
* pivot tables
* VBA
– Understand your own personal biases towards particular techniques
3. Understand Main Applications of Excel
– data analysis
– modelling
– data input
– others
– data analysis
– modelling
– data input
– others
4. Understand Effective Workbook Structure
– data sheets
– input sheets
– backend sheets
– others
– data sheets
– input sheets
– backend sheets
– others