Excel work, at least to the uninitiated, can feel endless. You are repeating the same small moves, click, drag, scroll, hunt for the right tab, then do it again twenty minutes later because the data changed.

That’s why shortcuts matter. In Excel, they’re a way to remove the little motions that quietly eat your week.

Try the five below and use them intentionally for at least a week. That is usually enough to turn them into muscle memory and enough to make your next spreadsheet feel less sticky.

If you want a bigger list later, keep this Excel keyboard shortcuts guide open and come back to it when you are ready to add a few more.

Ctrl + Arrow, and Ctrl + Shift + Arrow: Jump and select immediately

This is the one that makes Excel feel lightning fast.

Ctrl + Arrow jumps to the edge of a data block. Ctrl + Shift + Arrow selects to the edge of a data block. When you are cleaning exports, updating lists, or copying formulas down hundreds of rows, this is the difference between two seconds and two minutes.

Use it like this:

  • Ctrl + Down Arrow: jump to the last filled cell in a column
  • Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow: select everything from your current cell to the last filled cell
  • Pair it with Ctrl + C, then Alt + H + V + V (you will use that later) to paste clean values

Why it saves time this week: most people waste time scrolling, and scrolling is the slowest possible way to move inside a file. If you do any weekly reporting, reconciliation, or copy-paste workflows, this pays back immediately.

Ctrl + T: Turn a messy range into a table that behaves

Ctrl + T converts a range into an Excel Table. It adds filter dropdowns, makes formatting consistent, and, most importantly, makes formulas and references more reliable as you add rows.

Two places this helps fast:

  • Weekly lists that grow, sales leads, inventory, content calendars, expense logs
  • Anything where you keep adding rows and your formulas keep missing the newest entries

Once your data is a table, structured references become easier to read, totals rows are one click, and your file stops breaking every time you paste in new data.

Why it saves time this week: people lose time fixing spreadsheets that do not scale. Tables prevent the small errors that turn into big cleanup sessions on Friday.

If you would rather start from a template that is already organized for tracking, there’s a repository of free speadsheet templates for Google Sheets and Excel.

Alt + H + V + V: Paste values, and stop importing problems

Most Excel pain starts with copying data from somewhere else, a report, a web export, another workbook, then discovering you imported formatting, hidden formulas, weird links, and a file that now runs slower.

Alt + H + V + V pastes values only. That means you keep the numbers and text, not the baggage.

Use it in these situations:

  • When you copy from a pivot table and only want the final numbers
  • When you pull data from a CSV and need to strip out formatting or formulas
  • When you want to freeze a calculated result before sharing the file

Why it saves time this week: clean data stays clean. You spend less time hunting phantom links and less time fixing a file that started behaving strangely after one paste.

Ctrl + Shift + L: Filters on demand, without hunting the ribbon

Filtering is one of the fastest ways to answer basic questions: what is missing, what changed, what is late, what looks wrong. The slow part is turning filters on, selecting ranges correctly, then doing it again next time.

Ctrl + Shift + L toggles filters for the current range. If your header row is clean, this becomes instant triage.

Practical uses:

  • Filter blanks to find missing IDs, missing categories, missing due dates
  • Filter a client name to isolate invoices, payments, or tasks
  • Filter a status column to see what is blocked, late, or waiting on someone else

Why it saves time this week: you stop scanning with your eyes. Filters let the sheet do the searching.

If you want a simple example workflow to practice on, an expense log is perfect because it is repetitive and real.

F4: Repeat the last action, and stop doing the same click 40 times

F4 repeats your last action. It can repeat formatting, inserting a row, deleting a row, applying a border, and a surprising number of small tasks you do in batches.

Here is where it shines:

  • You format one header cell, then select the next header cell and press F4, repeat
  • You insert a row in one place, then move to the next spot and press F4
  • You apply the same number format to multiple non-adjacent areas, click, then F4

It also has a second job in formula editing. It cycles through relative and absolute references when your cursor is on a cell reference, which helps when you are building formulas you will copy across rows and columns.

Why it saves time this week: Excel work often comes in clusters. F4 turns repetitive finishing work into a rhythm, and it cuts down the last 20 percent of effort that usually takes half the time.

A quick way to make these stick

Pick two shortcuts to use all week, even if it feels slower for a day. Then add the next two. By next Monday, you will stop thinking about them, and that is the point.

If you want a low-stakes place to practice, use a simple template and do five minutes of cleanup on it, convert it to a table, paste values, filter, and format. This is how the speed shows up in real work.

Excel doesn’t usually waste your time in one dramatic moment. It wastes time in tiny movements, repeated hundreds of times. You know the feeling.

The shortcuts here aren’t a full skill set, either. They are the highest return moves, the ones that remove friction from everyday work. Use them for a week, and you will feel the difference in every file you touch.