(and How I’m Organizing What I Learn)
I’m learning Excel using a combination of techniques, not just one resource or method. Most of my learning comes from real-world practice at work, guidance and tips from my boss, books, articles, and occasionally ChatGPT when I need a quick explanation of a formula. I also use YouTube videos, which do help, but not always in the way I need.
One thing I’m very intentional about is not paying for content when there is already so much free information available. The issue isn’t a lack of resources — it’s that those resources are often unstructured, scattered, and hard to return to. That’s where things start to feel overwhelming.
What I’m trying to do instead is organize what I learn as it comes, and use this blog as a place to turn my notes into something clearer, more structured, and easier to reference — both for myself and for anyone else learning alongside me.
Why Excel Can Feel Overwhelming at First
YouTube videos have been helpful for me, but they’re often long, broad, and not always applicable to what I’m working on at the moment. Many times, I only need a small part of a video, but I still have to sit through the entire thing to find it.
There are also plenty of videos that are outdated or formatted in a way that doesn’t match how I personally learn. Sometimes it’s simply easier to read something, skim it, repeat it out loud, and then apply it immediately with practice material. Long-form video content doesn’t always allow for that.
This is especially frustrating when you’re just trying to clarify one concept or understand why a formula behaves the way it does.
What’s Actually Helping Me Retain Excel Skills
What’s helped me retain information the most is using Excel in real situations — at work and in my daily life. Seeing real data flow through systems, understanding how transactions move, and watching how changes affect outcomes has made things click far more than passive learning ever could.
I genuinely enjoy creating task lists and systems to stay organized, and Excel is extremely customizable. You can make it practical, visual, and even fun. That flexibility has kept me engaged.
I also ask my boss for extra tasks whenever I have spare time, which often involves data organization. That hands-on exposure, paired with repetition, has helped build confidence and understanding much faster than trying to memorize functions in isolation.
The Problem With Learning Excel Randomly
Excel has a massive database of functions, tools, and possibilities. Learning it online is possible using free resources, but it’s often messy and hard to keep track of. You jump between tabs, forget where you left off, and lose momentum because you don’t know what you’ve already covered or what comes next.
That confusion is usually what makes people feel overwhelmed or unmotivated to return to a subject. When you don’t know where you left off, it’s hard to move forward.
I want to remove that friction.
How I’m Breaking Excel Into Focused Topics
Instead of trying to learn everything at once, I’m approaching Excel in chunks.
I’m grouping simpler functions together and treating more complex concepts as their own focused topics. For example, I plan to create:
- an Excel basics post covering things like cell names, the ribbon, and the tabs you’ll use most when starting out
- grouped posts for simple, commonly used functions
- more in-depth posts for complex concepts like absolute vs. relative cell referencing or XLOOKUP vs. VLOOKUP
There’s no filler content here. You’ll be able to click exactly what you need, skim where necessary, and dive deeper when something requires more explanation.
Learning Excel One Step at a Time
One thing I’m personally struggling with right now is choosing which formula to use when organizing data. Once you start learning Excel, so many functions come to mind at once that it’s easy to feel stuck.
This is where I keep reminding myself to breathe.
You only need to get good at a few functions at a time. Let those become second nature, then move on to the next set. Practice them whenever you can. Over time, the most efficient formulas will start coming to mind naturally when you need data manipulated in a certain way.
Excel feels complex because it is complex — but we’re not trying to learn it in one day.
What I’m Building With This Blog
This blog is growing with me. I’ll be posting what I’m learning as I learn it, organizing concepts clearly, and eventually providing practice material for the topics I explain. I know how hard it can be to find free worksheets that feel safe, reliable, and useful, and that’s something I want to improve over time.
Feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or irritated when a formula won’t do what you want it to do is something almost everyone learning Excel can relate to.
If that’s you, you’re not behind — and you’re not alone.
We can figure this out together.