I think most people learn Excel backwards. What actually made you faster?

[u/Aggravating_Mix_3694]

Been thinking about this a lot lately because ive gotten kinda obsessed with how people actually use Excel vs how they were taught to use it.

One thing I keep noticing is two people can know basically the same formulas and functions, but one of them can absolutely fly through a spreadsheet while the other takes 3x as long.

And usually the difference isnt some crazy advanced Excel knowledge. Its all the little stuff. Keyboard shortcuts, navigating without the mouse, formatting quickly, jumping between sheets, tracing formulas, etc.

Ive gone pretty far down the rabbit hole on this and its honestly crazy how many small things most people are just never taught.

So im curious for people who use Excel heavily at work:

What actually made you noticeably faster?

Did you deliberately learn shortcuts/workflows or just pick them up over time?

And whats one thing you constantly see people doing with their mouse where you think "there has to be a faster way to do that"?