There's always an easier way
Before interning at Eisbrenner Public Relations, I had never used Microsoft Excel. My dad always tried to get me on the “excel boat” by making me budgets and sending me excel tutorials. Every time I looked at the worksheets, I got frustrated and promised to learn when I had more patience.
Unfortunately, patience was never a virtue I acquired. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I’m extremely impatient. With that in mind, you can imagine how putting together a media list with 200 contacts could make me a little edgy. There’s no way to get that done quickly, so when I finished the list, it was as if a rush of freedom spread through my body. But when I got the list back with edits, there was a comment that read, “please alphabetize.”
“NOOOOOOO!” I couldn’t understand why my teammate wouldn’t tell me to do this from the beginning. It would take me hours to alphabetize this huge list!
After some self pity, I began to strategize the most efficient way to put this list in order. There just had to be an easier way.
Thank goodness, my best friend Google had my back. I searched, “Microsoft Excel, alphabetize,” and a step-by-step guide to sorting a list appeared. With simple clicks, I alphabetized the media list. (Hint: Hightlight, sort A-Z and voila, it’s sorted.)
The point of this story is this – be curious! If you’re an impatient person like myself, sometimes putting in extra thought instead of rushing goes a long way. It’s just like asking for directions when you’re lost. You can either keep driving around, because getting out of the car and asking takes too much time and hurts your ego, or you can take five minutes and ask the gas station attendant to draw you a map.
Have you learned this lesson? Please share your stories below.
Unfortunately, patience was never a virtue I acquired. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I’m extremely impatient. With that in mind, you can imagine how putting together a media list with 200 contacts could make me a little edgy. There’s no way to get that done quickly, so when I finished the list, it was as if a rush of freedom spread through my body. But when I got the list back with edits, there was a comment that read, “please alphabetize.”
“NOOOOOOO!” I couldn’t understand why my teammate wouldn’t tell me to do this from the beginning. It would take me hours to alphabetize this huge list!
After some self pity, I began to strategize the most efficient way to put this list in order. There just had to be an easier way.
Thank goodness, my best friend Google had my back. I searched, “Microsoft Excel, alphabetize,” and a step-by-step guide to sorting a list appeared. With simple clicks, I alphabetized the media list. (Hint: Hightlight, sort A-Z and voila, it’s sorted.)
The point of this story is this – be curious! If you’re an impatient person like myself, sometimes putting in extra thought instead of rushing goes a long way. It’s just like asking for directions when you’re lost. You can either keep driving around, because getting out of the car and asking takes too much time and hurts your ego, or you can take five minutes and ask the gas station attendant to draw you a map.
Have you learned this lesson? Please share your stories below.
posted by Jamie at 9:22 AM
1 Comments:
As much fun as media lists, editorial calendars and the like are to create, knowing how to manipulate the content makes it much more bearable. Congratulations on your Google-based education! I spent money on 3 classes in college to teach me about as much :) PS- Just wait until you start dealing with Access. Yikes.
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