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Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
Why should you subscribe?
I have over ten years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
I comb through tonnes of self-improvement content so you don’t have to, and I distill the content into bite-sized wisdom for you
I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Hi! I'm Shem Opolot, and this is The Friday Fix, my weekly newsletter. If you've received it, you’re either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter (yes, I’m the kind of person who uses words like “latter”) camp and want to subscribe, then click on the shiny button below:
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Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
HAPPY FRIDAY 🎉 Collective nouns were a favorite of mine in primary school English. I knew a murder of crows, a school of fish, a parliament of owls, etc., but this week I learned it’s called an intrusion of cockroaches. And honestly, I—yes. Yes, it is.
TOGETHER WITH 1440 MEDIA
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Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.
LIFE
Saint Intent
Put your hands together for the patron saint of intention.
Not intention as in locking in, or proactively texting that friend to follow up on that flippant commitment you both made to “catch up some time.” Not that intention.
But intention as in what is tacitly striven for. What is inside but doesn’t always make it outside.
It’s the courier that carries the greetings people send your loved ones when they meet you. Those greetings almost never reach their intended destination in reality, but they sort of do, you know?
It’s the courier that carries the prayers you tell people you’ll make for them when you say, “I’ll pray for you” or “I’ll be thinking of you.” Yet that sentiment—that phrase—is often the whole prayer.
It is the resume your uncle or friend asks for but doesn’t do anything about. Okay no, your uncle needs to stop doing that. But the courier makes its rounds either way.
It’s the courier that sends the “I’m home” text at the end of a great night. Even though the demand for the text and the response in kind often get left on read.
This patron saint is unprovoked but never-dying. It’s a lie and a truth. It’s a love language often overlooked. It’s something lost in between airplane seats—there forever and not to be removed.
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THINGS
A quote
As you say, one’s past, one’s childhood, one’s growing up is always there to be revived, is always there to be made apparent in one’s current life. There is no “de-experiencing” as it were, there is only “cover-up”.
A picture
I kicked off my Spring campus tour for my work by touring Baylor University in Waco, Texas this past weekend. It’ll be hard to top my experience there. Productivity aside, life happens in the white space outside measurements, calendars, and objectives, and so I ate easily the best barbecue I’ve ever had, like a thief.
Here’s how it’s done: You grab two slices of bread (must be white, none of that whole wheat nonsense), and use them to make a sandwich with brisket (the layers of meat peeking from under the ribs) as the base, followed by the coleslaw, pickles, onions, and a generous lathering of the provided barbecue sauce).
WORK
Copy that
You have data:
You want to copy the formula used to compute the first total ($5) downwards. Now there are multiple ways to do this, and formatting the data as a table would completely render this exercise redundant, but options are nice.
So…
Notice the formulas in the formula bar match the corresponding cells used to compute the new totals.
You select the desired cell, hold shift (⇧) and, at the same time, click the downward arrow to select the rest of the cells you want the copied data to reside in. Once everything is selected click ⌘ + D on the Mac or Ctrl + D on PC, and voila.
💡 Pro tip: To do this horizontally instead of vertically, use ⌘ + R on Mac or Ctrl + R on PC.
PRODUCTS
A course
Sheets for People who Hate Sheets
This course is designed to take you from zero to good enough, even if the last time you opened a spreadsheet was by accident. We'll start with the basics—no judgment—and build from there.
A guide
How to learn Excel
If I had to learn Excel again, this is what I’d do.
FUN
The Friday Fix playlist
Your picks
> Turn your handwriting into a real font
> Watch YouTube like it's own Cable
> Why Stoplights are red
Have a great weekend,
— SO
