Obviously, everywhere you look this week, you find advice on how to do better in 2012.

While you don’t have to wait for a new year to become awesome at your work, You might use the occasion.

So, today I want to share 12 ways to become awesome in Excel. But first I have secret to confess…,

I think becoming awesome in Excel useless.

What we really want is, to become awesome in our work. Since we spend a lot of time using Excel (and other office software), knowing how to use these better can have a huge impact on how we do our work.

In that spirit, lets look at 12 steps to become awesome in your work using Excel.

I have 2 quick announcements & 1 Excel tip for you.

Announcements

• Registrations for next batch of VBA Class start form January 11th (Wednesday). Please click here to download the course brochure.
• 20% Holiday discount on Excel School expires tonight (Midnight, Pacific Time). Please visit Excel School page and use the code LETSGOEXCEL to claim your discount.

Read on for a bonus Excel tip as well.

In the second installment on Excel Spreadsheet Risk Management, Myles takes a look at How companies can manage spreadsheet risk?.

He tells us, how we can set a formal governance framework to reduce or mitigate spreadsheet risk. Go ahead and read. And please tell us how your company manages spreadsheet risk in comments.

Here is something fun, personalized and delicious to start your new year. A Picture Calendar built in Excel!

Using this you can print a 12 month calendar with your own photos. Its fun to use, easy to set up and looks great. Read more to understand how this works & download the template.

This year has been the most hectic since we started Chandoo.org. We had 178 posts, more than 7,500 comments & 10,000 forum posts. We have trained more than 2,500 students thru Excel school, VBA Classes & Financial Modeling Classes this year alone.

More than 3.5 million people visited our site this year, spending an average of 2:30 minutes per visit, consuming a whopping total of 10.5 million page views. Just to give you a comparison, last year (2010), we had 1.5 million people visiting 5.5 million pages. We have also added 17,000 more RSS / Newsletter members this year. It is a hectic year for the site.

To wrap up the wonderful year, I want to share a list of posts that most of you loved.

2011 has been the most awesome year since we started Chandoo.org.

Without doubt, the credit goes to our community – that is you.

I feel very fortunate to have you in our community. You inspire me to learn & share. I know I said this several times, but everytime, I feel like I have not done enough. Thank you so very much.

Apart from our little community, I feel thankful to many others, who have helped me through out 2011 to make you awesome in Excel. In this post, I am highlighting them & expressing my gratitude.

Here is a new year gift to all our readers – free 2012 Excel Calendar Template.

This calender has,

» One page full calendar with notes, in 4 different color schemes
» 1 Mini calendar
» Monthly calendar (prints to 12 pages)
» Works for any year, just change year in Full tab.

Go ahead and download the FREE 2012 Calendar and Enjoy.