As a virtual assistant I work a lot with spreadsheets. There are certain Excel shortcuts I use that save me a bit of time every now & then. This post lists my favourite ones & what they do.

Obviously it goes without saying that I use ctrl+c (copy) / ctrl+x (cut) / ctrl+v (paste) / ctrl+z (undo) / ctrl+y (redo) all the time, but the following basic shortcuts are also ones that I don’t think I could live without!

__________________________________

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Page Up / Ctrl+Page Down

What it does: Moves quickly between sheet tabs in the same workbook

Ideal if you have a spreadsheet with data on more than one sheet.

__________________________________

Keyboard Shortcut: Alt+=

What it does: Inserts the Autosum function to sum the adjacent block of cells

Ideal if you have a row or column of numbers that you want to quickly add up without touching the mouse!

__________________________________

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+;

What it does: Inserts current date

Ideal when filling out timesheets or invoice lists (especially if you can’t remember today’s date!)

__________________________________

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Tab

What it does: Switches between open workbooks. To go in the other direction just press Ctrl+Shift+Tab

Ideal if you need to quickly swap between the open Excel files.

__________________________________

I hope you find these just as useful & maybe save yourself a bit of time by using them more often 🙂 If you want to know more keyboard shortcuts to help with your productivity in Excel, I also have a Kindle book that you might find a bit helpful (sorry, shameful plug I know!)