There is no excuse for a tool this central to modern work to make you wait while it thinks about what it's doing. The user who posted this is not asking for a miracle or a workaround. They are asking for the software to get out of the way and let them do their job. The lag they describe, the seconds-long freeze when switching between workbooks, the forced restarts when a collaborator makes an edit, these are not minor annoyances. They are the symptoms of a product that has lost sight of what it is for.
What this means for you is straightforward: your time is being spent managing the tool instead of the work. Every time Excel stalls to reload a workbook you have already opened, it is not just stealing a few seconds. It is breaking your concentration, interrupting your flow, and making you second-guess whether the data in front of you is even current. And in a shared workbook, the problem compounds. When one person's edit triggers a refresh that locks you out for several seconds, the collaborative promise of the feature turns into a liability. You are not collaborating anymore. You are waiting for permission to move.
The user's version details point to a specific update as the culprit, and that pattern matters. This is not about hardware limitations or a need for more RAM. It is about a regression in how the software handles basic interactions. When a tool that used to feel responsive starts feeling sluggish after an update, the problem is not with the user. It is with the product. And the fact that they have searched for answers and found nothing only deepens the frustration. It means the issue is either rare enough to escape notice or common enough that people have just accepted it as the new normal. Neither is acceptable.
The practical takeaway is simple: do not accept this as the cost of doing business. If your workflow depends on moving between multiple workbooks or coordinating with a team in real time, you deserve better than a tool that forces you to wait. The user is right to prefer not to live with these issues, and so should you. Push for answers. File the feedback. Test the alternatives. Because the moment you accept a lag as inevitable is the moment you stop asking for a tool that actually serves you. And that is a standard worth holding.