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Episode 3 – Tidy Data, Tidy Mind
Okay, time for some honesty, folks. Come on, fess up. Yeah, you in the back — I’m talking to you.
How’s your Downloads folder looking?
Don’t feel bad. Mine’s like the Bermuda Triangle: slightly pointy, a little bit bigger than it probably should be. Files go in… and probably don’t come back out again. And that’s really what this episode is about.
Introduction
Hello everybody! We’re talking about messy data versus tidy data — and why being organised is the difference between calm and chaos. This applies whether you’re trying to run a business, or just trying to find that PDF you downloaded three months ago with the recipe for that cake you liked the look of.
Before we dive in, a quick plug:
- I’m building a shorts library over on Facebook and Instagram. Just search Data with Duke and you’ll find me there.
- There are about four episodes up right now, nice and short, in reel format.
- And of course, you can find all my podcasts, show notes, transcripts, and extra bits over at datawithduke.com.
You’ll also find some blogs there — usually random rants that link back to data in some way.
Alright, that’s enough of the plug. Let’s tidy up some data!
Messy Data
Messy data doesn’t just start in the office. It starts at home too.
Think about your phone photos: thousands of them. Screenshots, duplicates, blurry dog pics… sound familiar? That’s messy data. It doesn’t serve much purpose, and it quickly becomes unmanageable.
Now imagine the same thing in a business. Instead of messy photo folders, you’ve got messy spreadsheets:
- Multiple versions of “Customer” tables (
Customer1,Customer2,Customer List…), - Random event lists like “Christmas Buffet 2007”,
- And inconsistent files all over the place.
Why does this matter? Because messy data costs time, money, and sometimes reputation.
If a business can’t trust its data — whether that’s knowing which customer is still active or which takeaway is open — they’re effectively working blind. In fact, poor data management can even lead to legal trouble. Look up Data Protection Act fines in the UK or GDPR fines in the EU and you’ll see some eye-watering examples.
So messy data: we don’t want it, at home or in business.
Tidy Data
On the flip side, tidy data is about making things:
- Easy to find (accessible),
- Easy to understand,
- Easy to use.
And note: “easy to use” doesn’t just mean for you. It means easy for others or for systems to work with.
Examples at home:
- Organising phone photos into folders,
- Naming files clearly (so you don’t end up with BusinessPlan_Final_Final_v2.xlsx).
Examples in business:
- Using consistent formats (e.g., dates written the same way),
- Ensuring names are entered consistently (Timothy vs Tim),
- Avoiding rogue blanks or duplicated entries.
This is what some call housekeeping: purging unused data, archiving what’s needed, and keeping things structured.
Clean, tidy data is the foundation for everything else businesses want to do:
- Analytics – spotting trends, measuring performance, forecasting sales.
- Machine Learning – impossible without clean data.
- Dashboards – whether it’s Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau, or Power BI, they’re only as good as the data fed into them.
There’s a phrase in the data world: Garbage In, Garbage Out. No matter how fancy your analysis or dashboards are, if your data is a mess, the output will be a mess too.
A Challenge for You
Here’s your challenge this week: tidy up one small dataset in your life.
- Maybe it’s your receipts pile,
- Your Downloads folder,
- Or a spreadsheet you’ve been using to track finances.
Just spend a few minutes on it. Notice how much faster you can find things afterwards.
If you’re up for it, share your before-and-after screenshots, or just tell me the funniest file name you’ve found (bonus points for how many “final_final_FINAL” files are out there). The best stories will feature in a future episode.
Closing Thoughts
Tidy data at home and tidy data in business are the same principle — just on different scales.
So:
- Think about where your messy data lives.
- Find a way to clean it.
- And see how much lighter your mind feels afterwards.
Don’t forget, if you want quick tips on spreadsheets and data hacks:
- Head over to datawithduke.com,
- Or find me on Facebook and Instagram under Data with Duke.
I’m uploading at least one short video a week, covering spreadsheet functions and formulas — currently using Google Sheets because it’s free and accessible, but everything applies to Excel too.
That’s it for today, folks.
Tidy data, tidy mind. Go and clean up that Downloads folder.
This has been Duke, signing off.