Tech Tips & Tales from The MS Office Maestro

Your weekly guided mini lesson on Microsoft, Copilot & smart working

🌴 This Week

By the time you read this, we’ll just be arriving back home after four weeks in Florida.

It’s been a full and rather wonderful trip, a mix of training delivery, precious family time, and some proper thinking space to plan what’s next.

And as always, when I step away from the usual routine, the ideas start to take shape.

What I’ve been working on

Over these past few weeks, I’ve been building and refining two things I’m really excited to finally share with you.

Both are now live on the site.

New: Excel with Copilot (live webinar)

So many of you have asked for more support with Excel, especially how Copilot fits in.

This new session is designed to make Excel feel more approachable, more practical, and far less intimidating.

Here’s what to expect:

• 90-minute live webinar
• Real-world, assistant-friendly scenarios
• Clear, simple ways to use Copilot to get unstuck

We’ll focus on things like:

• Asking better questions of your data
• Getting help with formulas without needing to “know Excel”
• Understanding what your data is actually telling you

How to join:

• £127 as a standalone session
• £77 when you add it to the next cohort

👉 If Excel is the piece you’ve been putting off, you can explore the session and see if it’s a good fit for you.

The next cohort is open

​Microsoft 365 with Copilot: The Human Advantage is also now open for enrolment.

And this time, I’ve made a small but important change based on your feedback.

The new format:

• 4 x 90-minute live sessions
• Plus pre-work lessons you can access in advance

This means:

• Shorter, more focused sessions
• Time to prepare before we meet
• A better pace across the programme

It’s the same practical, real-world training, just structured in a way that works even better for busy roles.

👉 You can take a look at the details :and see exactly what’s included in this next round.

A quick note if you’re on the waiting list

If you’ve already joined the waiting list, you will have had an email from me already with a very special offer.

✨ This week's Copilot Moment

My tasks this week

You know when actions are scattered across emails, chats, meeting notes and half‑remembered conversations and you’re carrying them all around in your head? This is a simple way to pull everything together into one realistic list.

Instead of trying to remember what needs doing, let Copilot help you create a clear weekly action list you can actually work from.

Try this in Copilot:

Role: Acting as my task coordinator
​Goal: Build a personal action list for this week
​Context: Use recent emails, chats and notes related to (project or area)
​Steps: Group tasks into Urgent, Due this week and Next up
​Expectations: Bullet list only; no more than 10 items

Why this helps at work:

It reduces mental load, makes priorities visible, and helps you focus on what genuinely needs attention this week.

Quick Win

Run this first thing on Monday morning and use it to plan your week before the noise starts.

📌 A tiny Microsoft tip

Rules (Outlook)

If the same types of emails keep landing in your inbox every day, rules can quietly take care of the sorting for you.

They automatically move or flag messages based on simple conditions, without you having to think about it.

Where to find it:
In Outlook, go to Settings → Mail → Rules, then create a new rule with a condition and an action.

Why this helps: ​
Your inbox stays calmer, important messages are easier to spot, and you’re not constantly reacting to noise.

Try this today: ​
Create one simple rule for a frequent sender, travel, HR, or newsletters are a good place to start.

💛 Before I go...

It’s been a busy, sunny, slightly chaotic four weeks, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it.

Now it’s time to head home and bring all of this to life properly.

I can’t wait to share more with you over the coming weeks.

✍️ Shelley Fishel

The MS Office Maestro​
Expert-led, human-centered Microsoft 365 training