Near the start of the year, I was playing around with this blog and trying to figure out a few key details. Among the ideas that I decided to try out was sharing my understanding of Excel through a couple of tips in order to provide something more than just rants. My tips failed to go from formatting pointers into anything that shows the value of spreadsheets.
I know about more than formatting, and I initially intended to add more advanced concepts. I derailed myself. The most value that I can provide with Excel does not come from telling people how to do things. The most value is to provide these ideas only after others have made their own efforts.
In my list of defining beliefs, I have stated that I believe that the first time is more valuable than the hundredth. While the reasoning for my change of plans does not properly reflect this belief, it is related. The idea is that figuring out how to do something requires more thought than applying what you had previously learned.
I brought my Excel tips to an early end and immediately hinted at a revival of sorts. I will resume sharing Excel tips, but I will challenge visitors to solve problems before I share my solutions. This will allow visitors to work on problem solving skills and still allow me to show how to accomplish tasks in Excel.
The idea also expanded beyond Excel tips. In fact, my current approach will likely take months to perhaps over a year between Excel tips as I will be featuring a variety of mental exercises. I have generated a list of six fairly broad rotating categories for exercises with a number of sub-categories to maintain a degree of variety. Since variety also means the type of exercise this January probably shouldn’t be repeated next January, I had to cut down to five categories.
Starting in January, visit my generically named “Mental Exercises” blog at the bland URL of http://maritimeorca0.blogspot.com/.
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