The First Skill I Ever Learned That Still Shapes How I Think

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Little Story Time….

I still remember the first time I opened Excel.
It was on my Nanu's old computer — the kind that took ages to boot and operated like it had a life of its own.
Rows and columns filled the screen, staring back at me like a puzzle to solve.
At the time, I didn't know what cells or formulas meant, I was simply amazed that I could fit everything so neatly — the numbers, the words, even a bit of chaos, it was all easily contained on a simple grid.
It was during this time my curiosity turned into a habit.
Budgeting pocket money.
Thinking through college projects.
Tracking consulting deliverables.
Somewhere between all those sheets, Excel quietly became more than software — it became a way of thinking.

A Way of Thinking, Not Just a Tool

When I began working in a corporate setting, I came to understand that Excel was not only a key part of doing my job, but also a way of thinking ( but mostly people using ChatGPT for basics too).
It helps you think through the structure of your thoughts, test your logic, and address a situation that is a combination of chaos and order.
Every formula is a thought process.
Every function, a decision rule.
Every cell, a microcosm of cause and effect.
And perhaps most interestingly, those lessons transfer well beyond the screen.
  • IF reminds you that every choice has conditions.
  • SUM shows how small efforts compound.
  • AVERAGE teaches balance — not every day has to be perfect.
  • VLOOKUP reminds you to connect the right data with the right questions.
You start realizing Excel isn’t about numbers.
It’s about clarity.

Why It Still Matters

We talk a lot about AI, automation, and dashboards these days.
But here’s the thing — Excel quietly teaches the fundamentals those tools are built on: logic, pattern recognition, and structure.
You can’t automate what you don’t understand.
You can’t analyze what you can’t organize.
And you can’t build a great model if you never learned to think in cells.
Even now, I still plan half my life in spreadsheets — from monthly budgets to side projects to personal goals.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not about being tech-savvy — it’s about being intentional.

How to Learn Excel the Right Way

If you’re new to Excel or want to refresh your basics, here’s a simple roadmap I’ve seen work wonders:

🧱 Step 1: Get Comfortable with the Grid

  • Learn cell referencing (A1 / A$1/$A1/ $A$1)
  • Practice sorting, filtering, and conditional formatting
  • Explore shortcut keys (they save hours every week)

🔍 Step 2: Learn Core Formulas That Build Logic

  • Start with SUM, COUNTIF, AVERAGE, IF, AND, OR , IFS( sumifs,countifs)
  • Then move to VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH
  • Play around with text functions like CONCAT, LEFT, RIGHT, and LEN

📈 Step 3: Visualize and Analyze

  • Use Pivot Tables to summarize data
  • Add Charts and Slicers for insights
  • Build one simple dashboard — it’s the best project you can do to learn

🧠 Step 4: Build Something Real

Use Excel for something in your own life:
  • Your monthly budget
  • A task tracker
  • A project timeline
Learning by doing beats any course.

Resources I Personally Recommend

I still remember one evening at college, staring at a messy spreadsheet that just wouldn’t make sense.
I’d spent hours cleaning, formatting, and calculating — only to realize I’d made it way more complicated than it needed to be.
So, I did what I always do when I’m stuck — opened YouTube.
One video turned into five, and before I knew it, I was deep into tutorials on dashboards, personal budgets, and design logic.
That night, I learned more about Excel than I had in months of using it.
That moment reminded me that learning Excel isn’t about mastering formulas — it’s about curiosity.
If you know where to look, you can teach yourself everything.
Here are some of the resources that truly helped me or people around me get better at Excel:
  • 🎥 YouTube Channels:
    • One video that can make you learn a lot of things:
    “How to Create the Ultimate Personal Budget in Excel”
    It’s hands-on, practical, and shows exactly how versatile Excel can be in daily life.
  • 💪 Practice Ideas:
    • Track your daily expenses or habits.
    • Recreate any dashboard you see online.
    • Use random datasets (Kaggle or Data.world) to experiment.
Remember — the goal isn’t to memorize formulas, it’s to train your brain to think in structure and patterns.

The Real Lesson

If there’s one thing Excel has taught me, it’s that clear thinking is something you practice every day.
And sometimes, the best way to practice it is to open a blank sheet and just start building — anything.
You don’t need fancy formulas for that.
Just a bit of curiosity, some patience, and the urge to make sense of things.
Because whether it’s life, work, or strategy —
it always comes down to how well you can organize your thoughts, test your logic, and adapt when things break.
And for me, that all started with Excel.

~Sushant (SK)