What To Do When You Get Stuck In Your Studies?
When starting a new interactive training course, it’s tempting to become a complete social outcast and immerse ourselves in our studies at every available opportunity. It’s an exciting time, with lots of new, interesting subjects to get our teeth into. But apart from that being a rather strange thing to do, it’s also not the best way to learn and retain information.
Firstly we need to set up a sustainable study habit. This should be the number of hours each week that we can commit to and stick to, and doesn’t swamp every other area of our lives! It’s better not to attempt an unrealistic amount, and much easier to take in information in bite-sized pieces.
Consistently learning a smaller amount well is more useful and maintainable than learning a larger amount not so well. But however savvy we are with our learning diary, there are inevitably going to be times when the brain just glazes over, and nothing will go in.
When this happens, it’s important not to get demoralised. There can be all sorts of reasons why we’ve had a mental block, and there are lots of ways to overcome the stalemate. Taking a break, going outside into the garden and breathing deeply can all help. It’s amazing how a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake can fire up the reserves again.
Anything new can test our mental agility, and it’s not unusual to grapple with understanding the first time we look at something. Sometimes we just have to accept that this is part of learning - it happens from time to time and it’s uncomfortable, but with application we can push through until penny drops! To accomplish anything worthwhile takes a few failed attempts along the way - remember that awkward feeling on your early driving lessons?
Our sub-conscious mind has a habit of solving problems when we’re not consciously aware it was working on them, so it can help to leave something over-night and come back the next day with a fresh pair of eyes. Suddenly the answer pops into our head when we’re least expecting it.
Covering a section again, and then having a go at explaining it to someone else helps to clarify the point. Writing it down helps to organise thoughts - if we state our assumptions and the evidence for them, we can usually analyse out the problem areas.
With so many different online facilities out there we can frequently stumble upon something that puts it all into context. Researching on Google or technical forums for other explanations and descriptions can sometimes hit the spot.
Finally, the best learning programmes offer excellent tutor support. There’s nothing like an on-screen demonstration and one-to-one explanation to help really drive the point home.
What Keeps Most People Stuck In An Average Life?
This is hardly a new thing to ask; it’s a question that’s been around for as long as people have existed. Some of the best thinkers over the centuries have looked at the factors that hold us back - the part of human nature that limits our achievements in life.
It’s an instinctive safety mechanism. It’s been called many things over the years - but basically it’s what we all know as fear. You’ll be familiar with the ‘fight or flight’ reaction, a vital tool for the early man. At its most basic level, it’s what makes us instantly react when someone jumps out at us!
We all have a comfort zone and when we step out of it, or danger comes into it, we experience an adrenaline rush enabling us to fight or run away. Our natural default setting is to run and get back into our comfort zone as quickly as possible. We log the experience in our brain as it was very uncomfortable and programme ourselves not to do it again.
But as we don’t have to worry about being eaten by sabre tooth tigers these days, most fear is imaginary. F.E.A.R = False Evidence Appearing Real. We’re brilliant at imagining the worst that could happen, even though 99.99% of the time it never does. On the other hand, we spend very little time imagining the best that could happen, yet evidence suggests that the few who do visualise their success are much more likely to achieve it.
Society has been encouraging fear for years. Ruling leaders, both political and religious, have used fear as a tool to keep control over the ages, keeping society in line. When you were little, your mum probably used it on more than one occasion! The truth is, we have a choice - between feeling the fear and do it anyway, or whimpering back and staying average.
Any improvement you want to make will involve change. If you want to change some things in your life you have to change some things in your life - that sounds like a riddle, but in fact it just means no problem can be solved at the same level of thinking that caused it.
Anything big enough to make a worthwhile change will inevitably involve doing something different and taking you out of your comfort zone, so it stands to reason you’ll feel uncomfortable about the action needed. People who stay average resist change because ‘it didn’t feel right’. People who move on know they’ll feel uncomfortable but push through the feeling and do it anyway.
Start with small changes that are outside of your comfort zone. That zone gradually gets bigger as you start to build your confidence. List the positives and negatives of any action - objective analysis helps you to break down the fear.
As Shakespeare said, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” Don’t let your fears and doubts rob you of the good things in life.
Using Multiple Windows In Excel 2007
Author: A. Whiteman
Article: When working in Microsoft Excel 2007, it is almost certain that you will sometimes need to open more than one workbook at a time. Excel permits you to do this and to display and navigate between the various workbooks.
To open several Excel documents, click on the Office button and choose “Open. Naturally, you can only open several workbooks at once if they are in the same folder. To highlight a range of workbooks, click on the name of the first, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard and click on the name of the last.
To select individual files in an arbitrary fashion, click on the first file, hold down the Control key, click on the second, third, and so forth. You can also drag a selection rectangle around a series of files to highlight them. When you do so, make sure you start in blank space rather than starting on an item. Having highlighted the files that you want to open, click on the Open button.
Excel will then open each of the selected files in a maximised window. This means that you can only see one workbook at a time. To switch between workbooks, you can use the Windows taskbar and choose a particular name. You can also click on the View tab of the Excel Ribbon and here you’ll find the Switch Windows button. This contains a drop-down list of all the windows you currently have open. You can simply select a name to activate it.
The Window section of the View tab also features an option for tiling your Windows. Just click on the Arrange All button and choose the option “Tiled”. When you click OK, Excel will all the open files into separate small windows so that you can see the contents of all files simultaneously. To activate a workbook, simply click on any part of its window.
To exit tiled mode, click on the maximise button of any of the open workbooks. This action maximises all the open workbook windows so when you switch windows, you will find that all of them have been maximised.
Regardless of which display mode is currently active, you can always use your keyboard to switch between the various workbooks that you have open in Excel at any given time. To do this, hold down the Control key and press Tab.
A really great feature of Excel is the ability to switch workbooks when you are in the middle of creating a formula. This allows you to easily create formulas with external references. For example, let’s say you are creating a formula containing the VLOOKUP function but that the lookup table is in a separate workbook, just make sure that both workbooks are open before you start creating the formula. At the point where you need to enter the location of the lookup table, use any of the techniques shown above to switch documents then drag across the cells that contain the lookup table.
The The writer of this article is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 Classes in London and throughout the UK.