Below are 17 steps I take with fresh data, along with the shortcuts I use.
12 deal directly with data analysis; the other 5 are generic.
If you do a lot of Excel data analysis, these shortcuts will help you fly through your work much faster. Consider them arrows in your quiver.
Excel 2010 had a fast way to save and send a file as an email attachment: Alt-F-D-A. It was quick and easy, using only the left hand.
In Excel 2013, this great send-as-attachment shortcut has unfortunately morphed into a more difficult one — Alt-F-H-E-A — as shown below. It’s more letters, plus you need your right hand to type “H” (or you can drift your left hand over). If your hands are always on the keyboard, this won’t matter as much. But I prefer keeping my right hand on the mouse (not the keyboard).
The the Send As Attachment shortcut is about 1-2 seconds slower in Excel 2013 than Excel 2010.
Here are the shortcuts:
Send As Attachment (Excel 2010): Alt-F-D-A
Send As Attachment (Excel 2013): Alt-F-H-E-A
Keep learning shortcuts — you’ll get faster at Excel!
***Learn how to discover thousands of Alt shortcuts like the ones above.
Here’s a quick look at three sets of Excel shortcuts for (1) opening, (2) closing and (3) saving workbooks.
Open Workbook (keyboard): Ctrl+O (this requires the right hand but I’m unaware of any left-hand only shortcut)
Ctrl+O works fine, but there’s a faster way if you’re opening a file that you recently had open (which, for me, is 95% of the time). Using this method, you can avoid wading through directories, thus saving some time. What is this method? Simple: go to the list of Recent Workbooks on the File tab, as shown below:
Luckily, the shortcut to get there is a quick left-hander (after you type it in, you can either just click on the file name as it appears in the list, or type in the keyboard accelerator — e.g., “Y1” or “Y2”):
Open Recent Files (keyboard): Alt-F-R
Why, you ask? Because Excel is the most popular business software ever in the world (hundreds of millions of users), and probably the most important. If you are in the business world, you need to know Excel, and the faster you can be at Excel (e.g., with shortcuts), the faster your business (or your part of it) will run. The faster you and your business can run, the more successful you will be. This means: promotions, pay increases and greater job satisfaction. Being fast at Excel makes you more valuable as employee, which increases your upward mobility on the pay scale. All kinds of new possibilities are opened up for such magnificent people.
If you decide to put off learning shortcuts, then you are putting off advancing your career. Therefore, any myths and misconceptions that keep you from learning shortcuts are dangerous to your career. Multiply this by several hundred million people and you’re hindering the global economy!!! You are in fact decreasing the total amount of cosmic happiness!!! These myths are dangerous indeed! They are nearly as dangerous and misguided as the ancient practice of bloodletting (see below). Bloodletting is as smart as avoiding Excel shortcuts. See, these evil men below are simultaneously bleeding the naked guy in the chair and telling him Excel shortcuts are bad for his health.
Here are my favorite Excel Ctrl shortcuts — those I use most frequently, but in no particular order. They’re my fave’s because they’re so easy on the hands. Nine of the 12 can be executed with the left hand. For these nine, your right hand can remain comfortably on the mouse, relaxing in a hot tub. I’ll explain why I include the other three at the end of the post.
Cut, Copy & Paste
Ctrl+C: Copy (see more on Excel shortcuts for Save, Cut, Copy, Paste and Bold here)
Ctrl+V: Paste (see more on Excel shortcuts for Save, Cut, Copy, Paste and Bold here)
Ctrl+X: Cut (see more on Excel shortcuts for Save, Cut, Copy, Paste and Bold here)
Undo & Redo
Ctrl+Z: Undo
Ctrl+Y: Redo [Read more…]