Think First. Then Build the Spreadsheet.
Covering formulas, dashboards, Power Query, finance modelling, and the analytical mindset.
Long-reads alongside quick-reference guides — useful however much time you have.
Every article here starts from first principles — a question worth asking, a structure worth building. Formulas, dashboards, finance models, and the analytical mindset, written for people who want to understand the why.
Why Every Dashboard Starts in a Cell
Before a chart renders, someone asked a question. This piece traces the thinking process from raw data to a decision-ready dashboard — and why that process belongs in Excel first.
A structured read on data literacy, analytical sequencing, and why skipping the spreadsheet step produces dashboards that look good but answer the wrong thing.
Structured Thinking, One Article at a Time
VLOOKUP vs INDEX-MATCH: A Thinking Framework
The One-Sheet Dashboard Discipline
Cleaning Data Is Asking Better Questions
Not a syntax guide — a reasoning guide. Understand which lookup logic fits which analytical question before you type a single character.
Constraint is a design principle. Building a single-sheet dashboard forces you to decide what matters — and that decision is the real analytical work.
Power Query is a tool. The thinking behind it — why this column, why this filter — is a habit. This piece builds the habit from the ground up.