Housekeeping

When you’re staring at a spreadsheet for hours on end, a little organization can go a long way. To stay organized, I create new sheets, freeze panes, and insert filters. I call these “housekeeping skills” because these techniques keep my data neat and tidy.

How to create, edit, and protect sheets

Keep raw data and clean data in separate sheets, create new sheets, color-code your sheets, protect your sheets, and hide/unhide your sheets.

How to freeze panes

Freeze your top row and/or your first column so that your headers don’t get “lost” as you scroll through the data.

How to sort data with filters

Use filters to quickly sort your data.

How to reformat numbers

Learn how to convert numbers with decimal places into percentages and how to adjust how many decimal places are shown.