Adaeze Uche

For many people who use Excel, the instinctive response to any data-retrieval task is to do a VLOOKUP in their spreadsheet. It's so ingrained that using it feels almost like riding a bike. You don't really think about it; you just do it. However, after struggling to get VLOOKUP to perform a multi-criteria lookup one day, I had to look for another option. That's when I stumbled upon DGET. It's not exactly a VLOOKUP killer, but it's a much smoother solution for lookups that require multiple conditions.

If you've spent some time in Excel, you've probably noticed a little paintbrush icon sitting near the top-left corner of your screen. It's possible you've even clicked it by accident without noticing anything happen. That used to be my approach, too. This unassuming button is one of the most overlooked tools in Excel, which is a shame because it's also one of the biggest time-savers for anyone who spends hours formatting spreadsheets.