Tom's Favorite Things : @msexcel + @KiwiforGmail
My first experience with Excel happened sometime early on in high school. I wish I could turn back time and remember that first spreadsheet I created and how crude it was.
Little did I know then I would fall in love.
Throughout college, I was forced to get deep comfort with Excel to work on the advanced modeling, forecasting and work that comes with a degree in Economics. I was awestruck that this little program could do so much. As my natural curiosity piqued, I found out that there pretty much wasn’t anything Excel could do.
I started using it for writing tasks and found ways to optimize my time. If you don’t know =concatenate(), you need to look it up right now. Go ahead. I’ll be waiting right here.
Amazing, right? I love Excel.
As I created internship programs, mentoring college students and graduates I made a 10 week Excel boot camp. To this day, I still get random texts and emails about their newfound skills. It takes a while and commitment to really understand the depths of Excel, but will guarantee if you put in the work, she will treat you like a king.
In the past few years, I’ve worked in a few organizations that are Google app centric. No disrespect to the Google, but Sheets doesn’t come close.
Apple, I love you...but Numbers is like handing Michelangelo a dull blue crayon and expect him to create the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
If you don’t mind this rant, I will even add in that the PC version of Excel far outpaces the Mac version. I have a newly developed admiration for all things Apple, but I keep a PC for when I need to flex my Excel muscles.
Nothing compares to old school Excel. Nothing.
Like I said, I’m surrounded by the G-Suite. I’ve could adjust to it, but there still was something missing. Having multiple tabs and browsers open side-by-side with regular websites was a pain. Having accidentally closed Safari or Chrome not remembering I had a Doc or Sheet open was such an ongoing hassle.
It happened a few too many times, so I went in search for something better - and of course Silicon Valley answered my prayers.
There’s a nifty little application called Kiwi that makes the Google ecosystem much more powerful.
Gmail is powerful. As a well-designed email client, it has no equal. No one wants to use Gmail in the browser on a phone. But that's our only choice on the desktop. Until now. Kiwi is a solution for office productivity that allows you to use Docs, Sheets, and Slides as native, windowed desktop applications within Kiwi.
You can open documents in their own windows so you can multi-task like never before using documents across applications and accounts.
Distinct from what Gmail uses in the browser, Kiwi has a powerful engine that allows multiple accounts to be used together with 100% fidelity- no logging in and out, having annoying conflicts or having to login over and over again.
Add on unique features like desktop notifications and a do-not-disturb feature and Kiwi not only make G-Suite easier...it makes it better.
It’s hard to explain, but I suggest you look at their video demo, take a trial for a test spin and then make the HUGE investment of....$10. Do it, you won’t regret it!