PRO TIP: Comments
As you work on a project for months at a time, do you ever get the comments cells that just won’t end? Folks love to pile on with thought after thought, and soon, you are scrolling through every cell for miles, just trying to find the latest update? I have seen so many spreadsheets suffer from this lack of organization that I made this week’s PRO TIP to offer some other ways to convey updates to a team over time.
Did you know that if you press ALT+ENTER in a cell in Excel that it will add a blank line of text? I love this little productivity hack, and it works especially well whenever you have a cell that has a lot of words in it (like a Comments field). To get it to work, you want to double-click the cell first, and then I recommend going to the start of the line (you can press the Home key, or just click there with your mouse), then press ALT+ENTER, and Voila! You’ve got a blank line at the top of your cell.
Here’s where the PRO TIP comes into play- click on that blank line, and start your NEWEST update. If you have a lot of people using the spreadsheet, it’s best to start your comments with the date and your initials, so everyone knows who wrote it. Once you’ve got it flagged with the date and your initials, enter in your [brief] comment. If everyone on your team starts making updates this way, then you will always have the newest updates at the very top of your cell- no scrolling endlessly! It’s a huge time-saver, and can help make those tasks that take a long time to finish manageable and trackable.
If you want to try this method out on your own, grab a FREE copy of my Project Plan or Issues List tool, and watch the video above for a live walkthrough of the PRO TIPs above.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
How have you managed ongoing Comments updates in the past? How much time could you save if everyone on your team saved their updates at the top of the cell, rather than at the end? Leave me a comment or shoot me a DM with your feedback! I’d love to hear how this is working for you!