This is hands down my favorite Excel shortcut, because I use it more times per day than I breath. Ok, I’m exaggerating, but not by that much.

This is a GAME CHANGER for anyone who spends any kind of time with spreadsheets. Without it, I wouldn’t just be slower, I’d be in tears.

In this video, I will show you the fastest way to move around a spreadsheet. Buckle up!

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This is one of the most important shortcuts you will ever learn because without it, you’ll be wasting countless hours, days, even weeks of your life.

In this video, I’m going to teach you the fastest way to move around a spreadsheet.

The way this works is, there’s a couple pieces to it. So, let’s start with an empty sheet, right? If I want to move it to the different cells with the keyboard, I’ll hit the ARROWS. That part’s pretty straightforward.

If I want to select as I go, go, I’ll hit the SHIFT key and then the ARROWS. Now, notice if I go to the right, it expands that way. If I go down, it expands down and I get this little rectangle. Then I go left. Notice how it’s kind of keeping that initial point as the selection start, but it will expand based on how I’m moving with the arrows as well.

So, think of SHIFT as “schlepping.” You’re taking it with you. You’re taking the selection with you as you go, hence schlep. Also sounds a little similar with the first letters, so that’s the idea.

The other piece to this is, if you want to move around really quickly, you can actually use the CTRL + ARROWS. So, notice where I am right now. I’m right over here. If I hit CTRL + LEFT, I will jump or “catapult” to the edge of the data. If I go CTRL + RIGHT, I’m going to catapult to the other edge, right? It’ll go down, left, up, it’s all going on these corners because that’s where the data is.

How, exactly, it works with the edge of the data is not super critical. You’ll get a feel for it as you go through. But basically, anything that has data in it, if it’s text, if it’s a formula, if it’s numbers, it’s all good as long as it’s not empty.

So, CTRL + ARROWS will catapult you to the next edge of the data. The really, really, really amazing part is to combine both things together. So, I’ll start over here. I’ll hit CTRL + SHIFT and then DOWN. I’ll select, as I go, that whole area. And I can expand the selection by doing CTRL + SHIFT to the RIGHT, and notice I got this whole section. So, this is where the real power comes in. You can combine the catapulting and the schlepping together. The CTRL + SHIFT + ARROWS.

Some Shir words of wisdom. What makes this so powerful is that you can actually use this concept when you are writing a formula as well. If I were to do, let’s say, a sum, I can actually do CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN and it’s going to keep that reference for me here, in the selection of those cells, inside of the formula. We’ll get to that a little bit later, but it’s one of those things that applies everywhere. I’m just going to undo that.

I’ve created some exercises for you to practice how to do this. So, if you’re going to start with the empty sheet, you can practice it by using the CTRL and the ARROWS to jump around. If you want to go to this worksheet over here, again, the point is to bold all of the cells and, of course to use the “catapulting” and “schlepping” as you go. So, a lot of these are a little different, but go through them and use the “catapulting,” the “schlepping” and bolding as you go.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com, where you can download these exercises along with other free resources, such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time. And one quick story. I was watching a documentary the other day, and it turns out The Beatles broke up because they weren’t sharing the Excel love. Teachable moment.

When it comes to selecting entire rows or columns, there’s only one shortcut you need to know.

In this video, I will teach you the fastest way to select rows or columns, so you can make sweeping changes to your spreadsheet efficiently AND effortlessly.

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You know when you’re on your spreadsheet and you’re really in the zone, and the mood is right and you’re just kind of grooving, but then you have to take your hands off of the keyboard and use the mouse to select the whole row or whole column? Well, nothing kills the mood faster. In my book, at least.

But in today’s video, I’m going to teach you how to use just the keyboard to select an entire row or entire column.

Sure, you can select the entire column by going to the column letter and then clicking, or the entire row by going to the row number and then clicking. But, why would you do that if you can use the keyboard, right?

All you have to do is hit SHIFT + SPACE and you’ll get the entire row selected. If you want to get the entire column, you’ll hit CTRL + SPACE.

Really, really easy to remember because the SPACEBAR is the longest key on the keyboard, which means you’re going to select a lot of cells, regardless. If you use the SHIFT key, it’s a wider, more horizontal, more left-and-right, therefore, it’s going to get you to select the entire row. And the CTRL key is going to be more narrow and more up-and-down, therefore, the entire column.

A couple of Shir words of wisdom. If you actually start on a single cell, you’ll get the entire column if you hit CTRL + SPACE. But if you start with, let’s say, three different cells and then you do CTRL + SPACE, it will expand the selection to include all of those columns. If I’m here right now and I do SHIFT + SPACE, it will expand to all of the rows, in effect selecting all the cells.

I’ve created some specific exercises to reinforce these Excel shortcuts. Go to your rows sheet and actually select the entire row of all the Xs, and move them by hitting CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac. Go to the spot you want to go to, and you can paste it.

Now, pasting, you can actually select that one cell at the beginning and it will do the job for you, but I recommend starting a habit now of selecting the same amount of cells as you were selecting before. Meaning, do a SHIFT + SPACE again, and then a CTRL + V to paste it. Both will work, but this is a better habit to start using.

You can also do the same thing with the columns. Select the entire column, CTRL + SPACE, cut it with CTRL + X and then paste it with CTRL + V. But again, select the whole column first, and then paste it. Notice you leave a little mark for where you were.

By the way, one more thing you can do here is you can actually notice that you can select an entire row or series of rows and, in one swoop, apply formatting, let’s say a bold. It’s one of those shortcuts where you can use it with other shortcuts to really maximize your time and be really, really efficient. So, that’s why I love SHIFT + SPACE for the entire row, CTRL + SPACE for the entire column.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com, where can download these exercises along with other free resources, such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time. And one last word of advice. If you find yourself in a heated argument, stop, take a deep breath and share the Excel love. It’ll defuse everything.

Stop wasting time scrolling with the mouse, and jump instantly to the bottom right or top left of your worksheet using this shortcut duo.

In this video, I’ll show you exactly how to move to the beginning and end of your spreadsheet quickly and precisely.

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Have you ever found yourself scrolling the mouse wheel like your life depended on it, something I like to call “The scroll of shame?” Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

But in fact, those marathon scrolling sessions are long behind you once you learn this shortcut I’m about to teach you, and it’s actually a shortcut duo that lets you go to the very first and very last cell of your worksheet.

A less common but super valuable shortcut is how to move to the beginning and end of your active worksheet. The way to do it is to hit CTRL + HOME to jump to the top left and CTRL + END to jump to the bottom right.

It all depends on how much data you have in your sheet. So, the way to remember it is you’re catapulting. CTRL sounds like “Catapult,” at least it starts with the same letter, and you’re going to jump really quickly to the beginning, the top left, or the end, the bottom right.

If you’re on a Mac, you’re going to hit CTRL + fn + LEFT, which is really the same as the HOME, and you’re going to hit CTRL + fn + RIGHT to get to the end, to go to the first cell, last cell.

Couple things to keep in mind. If you go to a worksheet that has a lot of data, instead of scrolling around and trying to find the end and kind of struggling to see where you are, hit CTRL + END and you’ll know for sure where the end of your data is, and CTRL + HOME will you bring you back to the top. This is a really great application of when to use this shortcut.

Another example is if you have what seems to be a blank sheet and you do CTRL + END, you might jump very, very far down, and in fact, there might be something as seemingly innocent as a space, but that’s taking up memory on your sheet.

I actually had one client who had tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of blank cells that were completely not necessary, and the file started out as 70 MB large. That was seven, zero. By removing all those unused cells, we actually cut down the file size by about 95%, so it’s seemingly innocent, but actually can cause a lot of problems.

I’ve created some exercises where you can actually reinforce these shortcuts specifically. So, you’re going to go the X’s over here at the top. You’re going to find the cell that has the first X, hit CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac, and now you’re going to use the shortcut CTRL + END to jump to the bottom. Notice you didn’t even have to look for it. It’s there waiting for you because that’s where the end of the sheet is, and you’re going to find that spot and CTRL + V on the PC or COMMAND + V on the Mac to paste.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time, and in the spirit of Oprah Winfrey, share the Excel love. It’ll be your “Aha!” moment.

On a scale of 1-10, how annoying is it to switch back and forth between all your open spreadsheets? If you said anything higher than a 1, you’re doing it wrong!

In this video, I’m going to teach you how to switch between open spreadsheets (workbooks) WITHOUT touching the mouse, or minimizing and maximizing windows.

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I know you don’t mean to, but stop futzing around minimizing and maximizing windows and getting all confused when, really, you can keep your workbooks nice and big, and seamlessly switch between them with the shortcut I’m about to teach you.

When you have multiple spreadsheets or workbooks open, it’s really helpful to be able to move between them quickly. So, right now I have A open, but I want to switch between them, so I’m going to hit CTRL + TAB to move to the next one or the next one.

Now, if I keep going with CTRL + TAB, it’s going to cycle through. If I want to go in the reverse direction, I’m going to do CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to go in the opposite direction. Only really useful when you have a bunch open. That’s for PC.

For the Mac, it’s going to be COMMAND + `. What’s a grave, Shir? A grave is that key immediately to the left of the one. It’s got that reverse apostrophe thing going on, and it’s below the little tilde squiggle. So, the grave is the necessary piece. You hit COMMAND + `.

So, now, for the memory tricks. If you’re using the PC, control labs with control tab. Think of your lab as a workbook, right? Your little mad genius workstation here. That’s your lab. You want to control your lab with CTRL + TAB. That’s how you move to the next workbook. If you want to go in reverse, you hit the SHIFT, as well.

With the Mac, you want to window shop with gravitas. You’re window shopping because you’re switching between the different windows, and gravitas because you’re really serious and because you’re using the grave key. It’s pretty straightforward.

For this exercise that I created specifically for this purpose, you’re going to go ahead and start at the beginning. Move to the X that you want to move, hit CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac, do your shifting between the workbooks and actually find the spot, and then CTRL + V with the PC or COMMAND + V with the Mac to paste it in. And that is how you actually manage to practice all those things that we talked about.

Some Shir words of wisdom for you is to keep your screen very clutter-free. Close all of the workbooks that you’re not using. You might think that that’s pretty obvious, but believe me, over the years, I’ve seen a lot of clutter. Just keep open the workbooks that are relevant to your current task.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching, see you next time, and like my mom always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates when you share the Excel love.”

This is, hands down, one of the most useful shortcuts in Microsoft Excel because no matter what industry you’re in or what kind of project you’re working on, you will have to move between the sheets countless times.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to fly effortlessly from one tab (worksheet) to another with Jedi-like precision.

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This is, hands down, one of the most useful shortcuts in Microsoft Excel because no matter what industry you’re in or what kind of project you’re working on, you will have to move between the sheets countless times. And today, I’m going to show you how to fly effortlessly from one sheet to another with Jedi-like precision.

Instead of clicking with the mouse to go back and forth between your worksheets, we’re now going to use the keyboard. On the PC, you’re going to hit CTRL + PGDN to go to the right, you’re going to hit CTRL + PGUP to go to the left, right? So CTRL + PGDN is the next, or to the right, CTRL + PGUP is previous, or to the left.

Same deal on the Mac, it’s CTRL + PGUP / CTRL + PGDN but to get to those keys, you have to hit the FN + DOWN or FN + UP. But again, it’s the same concept, PGUP/PGDN.

That leads us to the most amazing memory trick ever, at least I think so. Control your pages before they wet all the sheets. So, think of pages as like rambunctious little kids that are going around peeing everywhere. It’s gross, but it’ll help you remember, hopefully. That’s the way to remember it. Control your pages before they wet all the sheets.

In this exercise, I created a specific exercise to practice this over and over again. From the start point, you’re going to move all the X’s. You’re going to go to the cell that has the first X, CTRL + X on a PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac to cut it. You’re going to move over with your CTRL + PGDN until you get to the right spot, and CTRL + V to paste. You’re going to keep going back and forth until you could do this for all of the X’s. That’s your exercise.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time, and one quick thing before you go. I was texting Chewbacca the other day and he was telling me how he was trying to fix the Millennium Falcon, the Hyperdrive wasn’t working. I said, “Listen, Chewie. Just share the Excel love. It’ll all work out.”

For all you visual people out there, this one takes a little getting used to, but once you learn it you can save a bunch of time AND feel like a badass. Nerdy is the new cool, right? 🙂

In this video, I will teach you how to insert a blank sheet, and how to move and rename tabs (worksheets), using Excel shortcuts for both PC and Mac.

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It’s funny how many times I amaze people with the simplest adjustment to their workflow. Like this one client, who didn’t believe me when I said I can actually move the tab using just the keyboard. He was pretty blown away, and hopefully, in this video, I’ll elicit the same reaction from you.

Moving, renaming, and copying your tabs or your worksheets is one of those fundamental skills that actually lets you take control of your sheet in a way that you couldn’t otherwise.

So, instead of using the mouse to do this…sure, you can drag and drop, but with the keyboard, you can actually get very precise and very quick.

The way to do it is to use the ALT key with the PC. When you press and let go of ALT, you pop open this whole world of additional access to the ribbon. If you hit H it’s going to move there, if you hit to the O it’s going to move to Format, and if you hit M, it’s going to give you the Move or Copy window.

So within here, you have a bunch of different things going on, but pretty straightforward. I just want to choose where it’s going to go. I can use the mouse to click, or I can go up and down with the arrows.

Quick thing to point out. If it’s actually not in this focus, I’m going to hit TAB to move to the next option. TAB again, TAB again, TAB again, TAB again. You can also hit SHIFT + TAB to move prior, so TAB will go forward, SHIFT + TAB will go backwards.

Once you’re in the spot you want, you can move up and down. I’m going to move this cover sheet right before the number six. I hit ENTER, and it actually moves it. You saw it at the bottom real quick. So, that’s a really cool trick.

If you want to rename a sheet, for example, let’s say I’m over here on my demo. I want to rename it. ALT + H + O + R. It’s already highlighted, all I have to do is start typing and hit ENTER, and I’m good to go. So, that’s a big time-saver right there.

The last one’s a little trickier, in that you do ALT + H + O + M to do Move or Copy, and from here, the only difference is you’re going to check this box on. So, you see how it’s underlined here with the C? That means if you hit ALT + C, it will give you that checkbox all ready for you without having to lift a finger, which is awesome. You can enter, it’s going to create that duplicate in the position that you want, so really, really helpful.

The memory trick for this for the PC is to Hurry Over and Move your sheet. Okay? So H, O, M. Hurry over, move your sheet. If you want to hurry over and rename your sheet, that’s how to get the rename option, and then the C, copy. Pretty straightforward.

If you’re on the Mac, you need to actually customize your keyboard shortcut. There’s a separate video. Go to the description of the video here and actually click on the link to get instructions on how to do that step-by-step.

So, couple things to keep in mind. You’re actually better off copying sheets this way, as opposed to selecting all and copying, and then going to a blank sheet and pasting it in. That’s a little dangerous. Instead, you want to do ALT + H + O + M, and then create that copy this way.

You also cannot undo a move, rename, or copy, so be very careful with this. Always save backups of your work and create a new version if you don’t want to have anything go wrong, but essentially, that’s what you need to do.

So, for going ahead and actually completing this exercise, you want to rearrange the worksheets in the correct order. So, they’re already set up with numbers, it’s pretty straightforward. Then rename them all in all caps, and then create a copy of all of them, except for the cover. Good luck!

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com, where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources, such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time, and one quick thing before I go. The next time you’re spending quality time with your family, and you’re in front of that roaring fire, and you’re sharing stories of how it once was, make sure that one of those stories shares the Excel love.

If your spreadsheet is a 3 ring binder, then each worksheet is a page.

In this video, I will teach you how to insert a blank sheet, and how to delete an existing sheet, using Excel shortcuts for both PC and Mac.

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I don’t know about you, but fumbling around for that little plus button at the bottom of your screen just to insert a new worksheet is kind of like fumbling for your checkbook at the supermarket. There’s a better way, guys. In this video, I’m going to teach you how to insert and delete tabs, which are actually just called worksheets.

Inserting and deleting tabs or worksheets is one of those foundational skills that, if you don’t have to touch the mouse to accomplish this, you’re actually going to save yourself time every time you do it.

So, the way to insert a blank worksheet is to hit SHIFT+F11. When you hit SHIFT+F11, what you’ll notice is, based on where you are, it will actually insert a blank sheet to the left of your current highlighted worksheet. That’s really important if you want to actually save yourself a step of repositioning. You just choose the worksheet you want, then you insert the blank worksheet.

On the flip side, if you want to delete the active worksheet, be very careful. Choose the one you want first. On the PC, you’re going to hit ALT+H for home, D for the delete, and S for sheet. It’s going to ask you, “Are you sure you want to do this?” If there’s anything in it. If there’s not anything in it, it will actually just delete for you immediately.

That is the trick to it, and the memory trick to actually remember this is think of a shrieking Frankenstein saying, “I want a fresh start,” all right? Those metal bars on his neck kind of look like an 11, so shrieking stands for shift, Frankenstein is for the F, and the 11 are those metal bars. Shrieking Frankenstein, “I want a fresh start.” That’s your mental image to help you remember that shortcut.

To delete the sheet, it’s just, “I’m happy to delete a sheet,” and you’ve got to hit that ALT key first.

On the Mac, same thing. SHIFT+F11 to insert the blank worksheet. You have to actually customize your keyboard shortcut to get the delete active worksheet. There’s a separate video on how to do that. But again, the idea is the same.

Couple of things to keep in mind. You want to make sure that you are careful with this, and when you delete a sheet, there’s no undo. You cannot undo the deletion of a sheet, therefore save a copy of your work before you do it to be on the safe side.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com, where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources, such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching, see you next time, and you know that Excel love I keep talking about? Keep sharing it.

If you’re like most people, you are starting your day off with this inefficient step. It doesn’t have to be this way! In this video, I will show you how to open and close spreadsheets using Excel shortcuts for both PC and Mac. Save time every single day, so you can get back to your life!

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If you’re watching this video, then odds are that you’re doing this one thing at least once every single day inefficiently. Today I’m going to show you how to open and close spreadsheets quickly.

The beauty of these shortcuts is that they’re all very simple and very straightforward. So when you want to actually create a new Excel file, all you really need to do is hit CTRL+N with the keyboard. N stands for new, doesn’t get easier than that. Same concept with CTRL+O for open, CTRL+S for save. Gets a little different with CTRL+W, think of it as closing the workbook or closing the window, which is actually different than quitting the whole application. I’ll show you in a second. So that is what you use ALT+F4 to quit the application, right. So if I hit CTRL+W, it closes that workbook or that window, but if I hit Alt+F4 on the PC, it quits the entire program. That’s the difference.

So what I want you to do is pay attention to that little nuance. And for the Mac, it’s actually going to be COMMAND+Q to quit, which is even more straightforward.

The memory trick here for the PC is think of it as at the altar, the Fantastic Four, those superheroes that we all love, are getting married and the priest is really fed up and says, “I quit.” So at the altar, the Fantastic Four getting married and priest says, “I quit,” that means ALT+F4 is to quit the application. And that’s it.

So for this exercise I want you to actually go ahead and create 5 new workbooks, save them all with silly names like 1 through 5, close them all, open them back up. And again, use only the keyboard shortcuts.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time. And in the meantime, don’t forget to share the Excel love.