Selling Keyboard Shortcuts

I taught an Excel class yesterday to some of my co-workers. Usually they think all my memorized keyboard shortcuts are just too crazy, but I managed to convince them during the class of the benefit of keyboard shortcuts.

Here are a few things that helped:

• When I told them the keyboard shortcuts, I explained them very slowly, making sure they pressed each key and held it before telling them the next key to press.
• I showed them how quickly things could be done, and those who followed my instructions (highlighting with Control-Shift-Arrow) were able to highlight their data a lot more quickly than those trying to futz around with the mouse.
• Some of the mice in the training room we were in bad shape and were even harder to control than normally functioning mice.
• One of the key combinations I gave them was so complicated it become almost a fun joke, so people memorized it and wrote it down because it seemed convoluted (if you’re curious, the actual key combination is F2, Shift-Home, Control-C, Tab, Control-V).

Well, everyone walked away from that class happy. Ordinarily, though, when I show people keyboard shortcuts, they just shake their heads and reach for the mouse.