Letting go of the mouse changes how fast you work
If you do a lot of repetitive work in Excel, learning even a handful of shortcuts can cut your working time noticeably. AutoSum and Freeze Panes especially come up constantly in everyday spreadsheet work, so they're worth memorizing first.
Curious about Excel functions too?
If you also want to get comfortable with functions like VLOOKUP, the full guide to Excel formulas is worth checking out next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do these same shortcuts work in Google Sheets?
Most of them work the same way, but a few are mapped differently, so it's worth double-checking the shortcuts you use most often in Google Sheets specifically.
Are the shortcuts different on Mac?
The main difference is that Cmd is used in place of Ctrl for most of these β the rest of the key combinations work almost identically to Windows.