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Diarmuid Early at the 2025 Microsoft Excel World Championship. Photo: Diarmuid Early . |
In December 2025, the Microsoft Excel World Championship was held in Las Vegas, USA. Diarmuid Early (40 years old) impressively won first place.
Speaking to Business Insider , Early revealed that he has worked with Excel for about 20 years, from his college days to his professional work at Boston Consulting Group. For the next 10 years, Early worked at Deutsche Bank, primarily analyzing data and preparing financial reports.
For about six years now, Early has been running his own business. In other words, he has used Excel throughout his career. After becoming the world's best Excel user, Early shares his experience to help others use Excel more effectively.
Always seeking the optimal solution.
"My number one piece of advice for office workers is to always believe there's a better solution," Early shared in an article published on Business Insider .
According to Early, think of Excel whenever you find a task too manual and repetitive. Users can easily find solutions on Google or ChatGPT.
"In my experience, for 80% of the tasks I've encountered that were difficult in Excel, a simple Google search with specific keywords will yield articles guiding you through the process," Early wrote.
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Early walks out before the competition. Photo: Microsoft Excel World Championship . |
Excel users are familiar with the SUMIFS function. According to Early, learning how to use this function for the first time may take more time than manual addition, but subsequent uses will become increasingly faster.
If mastered, users can save a significant amount of time over thousands of calculations when working. Additionally, the rate of errors or mistakes when using functions is lower compared to manual methods.
"The first time will take a little longer, however, if you are a new and lowest-level employee at the company, they will anticipate this slowness. The second time, if you can do it 10 times faster, the benefits in the next 6 months will be huge," Early shared.
Take some time to think about it.
Beyond simply viewing the results, quick operation also gives users more time to think, for example, about the logic of the answer.
"That's something bank employees and lower-level consultants rarely do. They just see it as a job, following procedures and delivering results. Meanwhile, their superiors will question the meaning, understanding, and rationality of the numbers," Early said.
According to the world Excel champion, taking time for self-reflection and communicating with superiors can help employees increase their credibility. It also helps users easily detect potential errors before others point them out.
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Early receives the Excel World Championship trophy. Photo: Microsoft Excel World Championship . |
Speaking of AI, Early suggests that these tools can greatly assist users in improving their Excel skills, including reducing errors.
For example, Early points out the "horror" of seeing a formula with 50 cells of numbers and various symbols. This indicates that the user is typing or clicking manually. This is very time-consuming and can lead to hard-to-detect errors.
"This is one of the fundamental ways we get stuck. In fact, at any level of Excel proficiency, you'll make mistakes that you only discover at a higher level," Early shared.
Thanks to AI, Early believes users can quickly improve their Excel skills. Of course, he himself won't improve much due to his extensive experience. Because of his fast operation, many people have nicknamed Early "the LeBron James of Excel".
"If AI reaches a point where it can teach me new skills in Excel, there will be little room left for manual Excel users," he emphasized.
Source: https://znews.vn/kinh-nghiem-tu-nguoi-gioi-excel-nhat-the-gioi-post1617349.html
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