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Excel for Everyday Work, a free technology course on Tomo

Excel for Everyday Work

Like Duolingo, but for Excel for Everyday Work. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Calculating Without the Calculator and Bringing Order to Chaos. It starts from scratch.

11 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Elliot the Elephant, the guide who teaches the Excel for Everyday Work course
Excel for Everyday Work
with Elliot the Elephant
11
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Excel for Everyday Work

  • Starting a cell entry with '=' triggers Excel to calculate an answer
  • Excel treats an entry starting without an equals sign as static text or raw characters
  • Pressing Enter after '=' evaluates the math immediately
  • Referencing cell addresses like A1 creates a live link to the value inside that cell
  • Hardcoding numbers directly into a formula breaks the automatic update when source data changes
  • Excel recalculates dependent cells immediately whenever referenced values change
  • Dragging the small square fill handle copies a formula into adjacent cells
  • Moving down rows automatically increments the row numbers in relative cell references (A1 becomes A2)
  • Column letters stay the same when dragging straight down a column
  • Typing words, symbols, or unit names directly into a number cell forces Excel to treat the entry as text
  • Plain numbers can be formatted with currency or decimal styles later without breaking calculations
  • The cell on the sheet displays the resulting value or formatted output
  • The formula bar directly above the grid reveals the underlying formula or raw input powering that cell
  • Selecting a cell immediately displays its true underlying contents in the formula bar
  • Range functions like SUM process entire groups of cells at once
  • Writing =SUM(B2:B200) eliminates the need to chain hundreds of plus signs together
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Excel for Everyday Work the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Making Excel Do the Math

You type 10 + 5 into a blank cell and press Enter. What appears on your screen?

Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.

Course map

Where Excel for Everyday Work takes you

Turn blank spreadsheets into reliable, automated tools. Learn the core formulas, table tricks, and layout habits that save hours of manual data entry.

  1. 1

    Calculating Without the Calculator

    • The Grid as a Live Calculator
    • Formulas That Do the Heavy Lifting
  2. 2

    Bringing Order to Chaos

    • Taming and Navigating Large Lists
    • Presenting Clean Summaries and Outputs

2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Bestie

Excel for Everyday Work is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start Excel for Everyday Work today.

Download Tomo, search Excel for Everyday Work, and play your first lesson in under a minute.