Depends on how you learn, and what the material is. Stuff that worked for me, in no particular order:

• Write a cheat sheet for exams, even if you can’t actually use it in the exam
• Start homework the day the lecture that covers the material is given in class.
• Try to explain the subject out loud to someone else (real or imaginary). Anywhere you draw a blank when talking is something you need to refresh on. Repeat this until you get it right.
• For memorization - heavy topics, build an Anki flashcard deck

All of these techniques are variations on the fact that people learn by repeated exposure. the closer together the initial repetitions are, the higher the retention.

Storage data structures. Database tables are designed for fast read/write. Excel is designed for fast simultaneous parallel computation.

To get a sense of what this looks like, you can read more about their data structures; Databases typically store data in what’s called a “B Tree” and spreadsheets typically store as a format that can be easily converted into a “Directed Acyclic Graph” (although Excel lets you turn off the “acyclic” part if you allow circular references).

Although, with Excel specifically, there’s probably not much difference since it has some database functionality now.