Basic selection question

Is there a way, once you have selected a portion of a column, to broaden that selection to the next/previous column?

I’m aware of the ‘broaden selection’ tool but that seems to be for instantly selecting right to the extents of the pattern, whereas I need to go incrementally.

The only workaround I can see for this is to use the begin/end selection shortcuts, but it’s not really the perfect solution.

Cheers