How to learn Excel shortcuts so they stick: drills, not lists

Why lists fail

Recognition is not recall. After reading a list you can recognize Ctrl+Shift+L as the filter shortcut when you see it, but at the moment you need a filter your hand is already on the mouse, because that path is the one with ten thousand repetitions behind it. Nothing in the reading changed the habit. The second problem is volume: a hundred shortcuts at once is a hundred things to half remember. The useful number is about forty, learned a few at a time.

What works: a constraint

Take one task, say "jump to the last row of this column", and do it with a limit on key presses equal to what the shortcut needs. Nine arrow presses do not count. The mouse is off. The only way to finish is the shortcut, so you look it up, press it, and the task completes. Do it three more times over the next week and it is yours. That is the whole method, and it is why Shortcutdrill is built as drills with a key-press limit rather than as flashcards.

The order to learn them in

1. Moving and selecting. Ctrl+Arrow, Ctrl+Shift+Arrow, Ctrl+Home, Shift+Space, Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+A. Four days. Everything else starts with a selection.
2. Formatting. Ctrl+B, the number-format chords, bottom border, font color, autofit. Four days.
3. Editing and paste special. Alt+=, Ctrl+D and Ctrl+R, Ctrl+Z, insert and delete rows, Ctrl+Alt+V. Four days.
4. Formulas. F2, F4, F9, Ctrl+Enter, names, tracing. Four days.
5. Structure. Grouping, hiding, freezing, sheets, sorting. Three days.
6. A test. Ten minutes under a clock, to find what still needs work.

That is the Analyst track: twenty days, fifteen minutes each.

Spaced repeats

A shortcut learned on Monday and not used until the following Monday is half gone. Each day of the track repeats five drills from earlier days, spaced wider as they get older. It is the same principle as flashcard apps, applied to a live sheet instead of a card.

Timed tasks: putting the keys together

Single shortcuts are the vocabulary; real work is sentences. From day 8 each day ends with a timed task: a raw export to clean, a table to total, a schedule to fill, a color pass on a model. The mouse is off, and a click costs two seconds instead of failing the task, so the habit forms without the frustration.

Mac and Windows

The drills carry both key sets. The only shortcuts without a Mac form are the Alt ribbon chains; learn them anyway if you will work on Windows machines, which in finance is nearly always. The Mac page lists every difference.

Questions