Have you ever used a formula that starts with “=VLOOKUP”? I am guessing some of your eyes just lit up. Some of you are ready to hit the reply button to tell me you know exactly what I am talking about, and you want to commiserate together about the hours of painful memories trying to figure out how to make this formula display the results correctly. 

If you don’t know what I am talking about, it’s a formula used in Excel spreadsheets that lets you search an entire database to look for something very specific, which you can then use to find an Approximate (TRUE) or an Exact (FALSE) match….blah blah blah. 

What’s my point? My point is that I love Excel. I love spreadsheets. I love the simplicity of how it functions, and the complexity that allows you to manipulate your data toward any result you want. It’s brilliant. In fact, it’s so brilliant, I know many people that use it for almost every function in their business. Client list, project status, project budget, and even their day-to-day work. 

Is this you?

Confession: I created a monstrous formulated database on Excel that I input all my stats after a round of golf and it spits out all the goals I hit, all the goals I didn’t hit, and a list of what I need to work on. In fact, it calculates 25 different aspects of my game and tells me how I am doing in each. Ridiculous, right? Or…brilliant?

Well, going along with the “Best of” series this month about all the business tools we use, I would like to introduce a tool we use at BOS Media Group that I love even more: MONDAY.com.

What do I love about MONDAY… where do I begin? First of all, it looks and acts just like Excel, but even prettier and much more intuitive – seriously, you gotta check it out for yourself. Again, I am not an affiliate and do not make any money promoting these products. I just want to pass along what has helped me simplify my life as an entrepreneur.

Features I love about MONDAY.com:

• Collaboration: Okay, yes, Excel lacks collaboration but Google Sheets (an online spreadsheet that Google basically stole the idea from Microsoft to create as their own) figured out a way for teams, clients, or anyone else you share the document with to collaborate together. But MONDAY takes it to another level. It allows you to assign tasks to others, create conversations, provide feedback, and even approve changes. It’s a full collaboration tool for any project. Find out more about the collaboration here. 
• Automation: Interestingly enough, everyone that’s used MONDAY says this is what sets it apart. So, practically, how is automation used? Great question – here’s a simple example of something built into a project called “status.” Let’s say the project manager assigned to this project changes the status from “pending clients approval” to “client approved.” You can create a simple automation where as soon as the project manager makes that change, MONDAY notifies the rest of the team and sends an email out to the client with the next steps. Pretty cool, eh? Another example of automation: when you assign a task and it gets completed, it could automate another task and assign it. That way, if you are the boss, you can keep your team busy for days while you are playing golf. Hahaha. Find out more about Automation here.
• Integration: It works with a bunch of other apps and software you might currently be using. For instance, Slack, Zoom, Outlook, Gmail, Dropbox, Calendar, etc. Why is this important? Because MONDAY wasn’t created to replace something you currently like working with and are familiar with, it helps connect everything in one place and helps you do your job more effectively and efficiently. Find out more about Integrations here.

One last thing I love about it is the name. MONDAY. This might sound weird to some of the haters out there, but Monday is actually my favorite day! I like to say that Monday is basically the New Year’s Day of every week – it’s the beginning of a new adventure, and a reminder that our work is not something we HAVE TO do, it’s something we GET TO do. Loving Mondays is really about loving your normal, daily life!

If that sounds nerdy, maybe you just need to try MONDAY.com… I hope this is the year you discover just how magical Monday can be!

Related posts:

Best Online Software We Use That We Love Beyond Just A Great Dude Why Slack Is Better Than Texting