How to Learn Excel in 30 Days: A Free Daily Plan

You can learn enough Excel for most office jobs in 30 days by practising 20 minutes a day: formulas in week 1, conditions and counting in week 2, lookups and text in week 3, and tables, pivot tables and dates in week 4. The plan below links one free lesson for each day. Each lesson runs in your browser, marks every answer as you type it, and needs no account or Excel licence.

How the plan works

One lesson a day, about 20 minutes. Each lesson is a short set of tasks in a real sheet. You type the formula, press Enter, and see straight away whether it is right.
Type, do not watch. Reading and videos help you recognise a formula. Typing it is what lets you write it under pressure in a job test or a real report.
Miss a day, do not skip a day. If you miss Tuesday, do Tuesday's lesson on Wednesday. Every week builds on the one before.
Day 30 is an exam. Finish with a free course exam and you have a certificate that shows you passed it.

Week 1: get around the sheet and write your first formulas

Day	Lesson	What you learn
1	SUM	Add a range, and how a formula starts with =
2	Intro to shortcuts	The keys you will use every day
3	Arrow keys	Move around a sheet without the mouse
4	Cell selection shortcuts	Select ranges fast
5	Cut, copy, paste	Move and copy data and formulas
6	Fill right and fill down	Copy one formula down a whole column
7	AVERAGE	Your second everyday function

By the end of week 1 you can enter data, move around quickly and total a column. When you copy a formula down, notice how its cell references change. That is relative referencing, and it is why a dollar sign ($A$1) is used to lock a reference in place.

Week 2: make decisions and count things

Day	Lesson	What you learn
8	IF	Return one value or another based on a test
9	AND, OR, XOR	Combine several tests
10	IF combinations	IF with AND and OR inside it
11	COUNT	Count numbers in a range
12	COUNTIF	Count the rows that meet one condition
13	COUNTIFS	Count with several conditions
14	SUMIF, then SUMIFS	Add up only the rows you want

By the end of week 2 you can answer questions like "how many orders over 500 came from the North region?" and "what did the East region sell in March?". Excel job tests often ask for these functions.

Week 3: look things up and clean text

Day	Lesson	What you learn
15	VLOOKUP	Find a value in a table by its key
16	VLOOKUP approximate match	Bands and tiers, such as tax or commission rates
17	XLOOKUP	The newer lookup that searches in any direction
18	MATCH	Find the position of a value
19	INDEX MATCH	The lookup that works in every Excel version
20	LEN, LEFT, RIGHT	Pull parts out of text, such as codes and names
21	TRIM	Remove the stray spaces that break lookups

By the end of week 3 you can join two tables, which is the skill most office Excel work depends on. If your workplace uses an older Excel without XLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH does the same job.

Week 4: tables, pivot tables, dates and a small project

Day	Lesson	What you learn
22	Table filters	Turn a range into a Table and filter it
23	Pivot tables 1	Summarise thousands of rows in seconds
24	Pivot tables 2	Group, sort and change what a pivot shows
25	Conditional formatting	Highlight the cells that matter
26	TODAY	Dates that update themselves
27	DATE	Build and compare dates
28	Find duplicates	Catch repeated rows before they skew a total
29	Dashboard project	Put the month together in one small dashboard
30	A free course exam	A timed 10-question exam with a certificate at 70%

By the end of week 4 you can take a raw export, clean it, summarise it with a pivot table and present it. That covers most of what an office job means by "good with Excel".

After day 30

Have a job test coming? Take the free Excel test with answers. It covers the formats used in interview tests and Indeed-style assessments.
Want more lookups? Do XLOOKUP 2, two-way lookup and VLOOKUP with multiple criteria.
Work in accounting? The free 5 Days to Better Accounting Spreadsheets course applies the same skills to month-end work.
Want a Microsoft certification? Read our guide to the MO-200 and MO-201 exams. Those are paid exams run by Microsoft's testing partners; our certificate is not one of them.

The lesson map lists all 95 lessons by track if you want to go further.

Frequently asked questions

Can you really learn Excel in 30 days?

You can learn the Excel most office jobs use in 30 days at 20 minutes a day: SUM, IF, COUNTIF and SUMIF, VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, Tables, pivot tables and dates. Advanced work such as Power Query, VBA and financial modelling takes longer.

How many hours a day should I practise Excel?

Twenty minutes a day of typed practice usually works better than a long session once a week. Short daily practice keeps each function fresh until the next lesson builds on it.

What should I learn first in Excel?

Start with moving around the sheet, entering data and the SUM function. Then learn IF, COUNTIF and SUMIF, then lookups, then Tables and pivot tables.

Can I learn Excel for free?

Yes. Every lesson in this plan is free with no account, and it runs in your browser, so you do not need to buy or install Excel.

Do I need Excel installed to follow this plan?

No. The practice sheet runs in any browser, including on a phone. If you want to use Excel itself as well, Excel for the web is free with a Microsoft account.

Is this plan enough to pass an Excel test for a job?

It covers the core functions such tests are built on: IF, COUNTIF, SUMIF, lookups and pivot tables. Finish with a timed practice test, such as the free Excel test with answers on LogicExcel, so the time limit does not surprise you.

Do I get a certificate at the end?

Yes, if you pass a free LogicExcel course exam: 10 questions in 15 minutes, 70% to pass, three attempts. It shows you passed our exam; it is not a Microsoft certification.