This week I turn it around to you. After sending 100 tips over the last couple of years, I'd like to hear from you. What are your favorite tips? The ones you've used over and over. How can I better serve you? How can I tailor the services I offer you? What would you like to see change or how can I improve?

Use this 7 question survey to let me know.

Click HERE to Share your feedback.... 

Reflecting over 100 tips....

I'm taking a few minutes to  reflect on where I started with the launch of tip #1 and where the last 99 tips. I thought I would send a lot of Excel tips, little quick shortcuts that help people with formulas or functions.  This was December of 2019. My first tip - still one of my favorites, Excel Flash Fill.  Who would have ever guessed there would be the pandemic and within a few months everyone would be working from home.  My business would quickly pivot to a program I had been using and learning, Microsoft Teams and it would become a...

Watch the video for step-by-step instructions.

Sections

Sections in OneNote are the way you break up your notebook. Think of a "3 Subject Notebook" where each section has pages in it. Similarly, in OneNote you can have many sections and many pages to keep things easy to find and manageable. The great thing is since OneNote is digital, you aren't limited to only a few sections and your pages can go on and on.

Meeting Notes from an Outlook Meeting

Often times when you are taking notes on a meeting it appears on your Outlook calendar.  It can be helpful to know who attended and the date and time. The notes can even be shared with other attendees.

If you use the Send to OneNote button inside your meeting. It will transfer all the information from the meeting to the notes. 

Once it transfers to OneNote, it will look like this.

Setting up Notebook in OneNote

As you're starting to use OneNote the first thing to consider is notebooks.  When you use OneNote, your notebooks are stored in the cloud. (Why does that matter? You can access your notebooks in OneNote from ANYWHERE. Phone, work computer, home computer, tablet. THIS is THE MAIN reason OneNote is as powerful and useful as it is.)

To determine how many notebooks you should setup, consider 3 things.

1. Where you're using OneNote (Work? Home?)
2. The types of information you will use it for.
3. If you plan to share your notes with others.

In general, my advice is to start with fewer notebooks. You can always organize by sections and pages within a notebook.  Although organization might be a reason for more notebooks, the primary reason is sharing. 

If you plan to keep only one type of information, for example personal and you aren't sharing it - you only need one notebook (at least to start).

If you, like so many who use OneNote for...

What is OneNote?

 Check out Microsoft's quick teaser about OneNote.

If you want my demo - here's a little more in-depth tour of OneNote.

Resources

If you're like me - at the beginning of the year, I usually take some time to take inventory of things. Some of it is in preparation for taxes. I try to figure out all my monthly subscriptions, determine if I use them all or not and what all I might have access to? I'd like to help you do the same thing in regards to Learning with Kari.

This is a bit of a different tip than usual. I'm starting the year out RE-introducing myself and my services both paid and free.

About Me (Kari)

I can't introduce myself without at least mentioning my family. If you know me, you know that's first in my life.  I've been married for 21 years to awesome Tim, I've got 4 boys ranging in age from 20 - 14, 2 in college, 2 still at home. So blessed to get to do what I do! My passion is truly helping YOU. I LOVE teaching, sharing tips and helping clients create software solutions for their unique needs and businesses. I've been providing training and consulting services to individuals, small...

Tuesday's Tip #94: Slow Down and Enjoy the Holidays

This is going to be super simple and not "techy" at all. My tip for this week and actually for the rest of the 2021 since this is my last tip of 2021 is to spend time with your loved ones.  REALLY pay attention. Slow down. Enjoy your people. Look them in the eye. Take time off. Play games. Drink hot cocoa. Listen. Tell the people you care about that they matter.

Above, if you want to have a laugh and a window into my family. I'm sharing a video I put together of our annual family Christmas Tree excursion. Every year we get an ENORMOUS Christmas Tree and I've had fun documenting it.

No more tips until January of 2021. I'm taking time off to do what I've mentioned above - to soak in the moments. I've learned more than any other year, life is fleeting and unpredictable, the moments go fast so I'm trying to soak them all in.

See you in 2022!! 

Free Excel Training

In the spirit of deals and cyber Monday, I've got some FREE training options for you.

The first - is my Excel mini training - showing you my 3 favorite tricks. You may have seen this when you first signed up for me list - but if it's been a while - these are great tips you might need to refresh.  There's also a PDF you can download and print.

Kari's Mini Training

Kari's PDF

The second - is to show you were you can find Microsoft's training videos.

Microsoft Excel Training Videos

Need More?

Most people need a little more than these generic training resources and tips to truly master Excel but these are a great way to get started and also to help you learn about what you don't know. If you'd like more - connect with me and we can put a custom plan together unique to your company, job, experience, and goals. Contact me [email protected]

SUPER SIMPLE Time Saving Excel Tricks!

So excited to have my 2 college boys home from college. Even MORE excited when they ask me for help with something I know - EXCEL!  I was helping my son with a spreadsheet, and was happy to be able to teach him so TRICKS he didn't know.

These are the kind of Excel tips that are hard to learn - because you don't know you need them.  But here they are :)

Trick #1 - Keyboard Shortcuts

Rule of thumb. Let me preface this by saying - use keyboard shortcuts to navigate a set of data anytime you can't see the destination in the same screen. For example if you are in row 1 - you can probably see 30 rows, if you want to navigate to row 40 or higher - a keyboard shortcut will save time. If you can see where you want to go - just click with your mouse.

CTRL + DOWN ARROW - 

CTRL + UP ARROW - 

CTRL + SHIFT + UP ARROW

CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN ARROW

Trick #2 - Preserve your original sort 

When you get an Excel file, often...

Using the New Whiteboard in Teams

Here's a great 1 minute video that shows you all the cool things you can do with the NEW Whiteboard. 

I case you have a problem playing it - you can also use this link.

There's a brand new interface for the Whiteboard in Teams. In my video you can see how to easily add a tab within your channel for the Whiteboard.

The whiteboard is also available in chats.

Add a Whiteboard to your Channel

1. Click in the channel, click the + across the top.
   
   
2. In the App window, select Whiteboard.
   
   
3. Name the Whiteboard with a unique name or use the default name of Whiteboard.
   
   
4. Add contents like notes, images or use one of the cool new templates to structure your content.

Microsoft has a great post about some of the other highlights.

Check it out here

Some of the things I love in the New Whiteboard

• 40+ New Templates
• Sticky Notes
• Insert Images
• New Drawing T