When we see a person typing fast, we get a vibe that the person is good at technology and computers. We get impressed by the person. But how to type fast? Let’s find out the benefits of typing fast and the ways to improve at it.
Benefits of typing fast
The obvious benefit of typing fast is Productivity which means, you can do a task quicker than you did it previously. This helps you do multiple tasks at the same time. Typing fast helps you save time. It improves your typing accuracy & posture. Ultimately, it helps you do computer tasks quickly.
How to improve at typing?
In the starting days of typing fast, I found a method called “Touch Typing”. It is what I recommend to beginners who want to type fast.
Touch Typing
Touch typing doesn’t mean typing on a touch screen. Touch typing is a method in which you know the letters and the area associated with your fingers. In this method, you need to type ( not fast ) without looking at the keyboard.
This process is pretty simple. You need to rest both of your index fingers on F and J keys ( they have bumps ) and align all the other fingers on their keys. Here is a chart representing the keys and their associated fingers.
As you are a beginner, you need to type slowly but without looking at the keyboard. In the starting days, don’t keep an aim to type fast but to type accurately. Accuracy is the key in the starting days. If you are accurate in the beginning, you will be accurate even while you are typing fast.
Speed and Accuracy
Typing can’t be measured by speed. To find how speed you are typing, we use a parameter called Words Per Minute (WPM). It is like the speed of your typing. If you want to be good at typing, 70-100 WPM is a good speed.
Accuracy basically means the number of correct characters you are typing. The more you are typing correctly, the more you are accurate. Accuracy is more important than speed. Many beginners think about speed but not about accuracy. Your accuracy must be more than 90%. This level of accuracy is mandatory, unlike speed (WPM).
These parameters can be achieved by practice. Let’s see how to practice touch typing.
How to practice fast typing?
The major thing to note here is practice. You need to practice as much as you can as it compounds over a long period of time. While you need to practice much, you don’t need to type fast. Using touch typing, you will automatically type fast if do good practice for 15 days.
Time taken
You can allocate as much time as you can for typing. But here is my recommendation. You can schedule 30 minutes to an hour session of the day in which you practice typing. You can do this daily in holidays or in your free time after office / school. In this way, you will be consistent at typing.
Free Resources
To practice typing, you can open a word document and start typing. Quite simple. But if you use a word document for typing, you will not be able to measure your Speed (WPM) and Accuracy. So, you can’t track your growth and improvement. To avoid this, here are some of the resources that you can use.
- Typing Master – Typing Master is a software for learning typing. You need to install Typing Master. It has many exercises and games to help you learn typing. I don’t recommend its pro version. You can use free version or free trial to learn to type. If you really want to learn typing, you will be able to learn typing within the free trial period.
- 10FastFingers.com – It is a website to practice and test your typing speed. Basically, you need to type what it shows, after 1 minute, it will show you your typing speed and accuracy.
- Monkeytype.com – This is an alternative to 10FastFingers. If you don’t like it’s UI or don’t like to watch ads, you can use Monkey Type.
- TypeRacer.com – You can use Type Racer to race against different people. It is a competition among various players, and the one who types fast wins the race.
These are the websites and tools I used to learn touch typing. I used all of these tools except for TypeRacer as it is for advanced typing.
Tips & Tricks for Fast Typing
Getting used to the keyboard
If you are a beginner, you need to start typing slowly and get used to the keyboard. You need to know all the keys ( alphabet ) associated with your fingers in this stage. Avoid looking at the keyboard. To become good at typing, you should be familiar with typing some basic words like “and, he, she, you, etc…”. These are the words not more than 4 letters.
Accuracy not Speed
As I said above, for a beginner, accuracy matters the most. You can increase speed over time but not accuracy. You should have at least 90% accuracy no matter what speed it is. Remember to turn off any spelling checkers, or mistake finders like Grammarly. As you are learning, you should not use these kinds of Chrome Extensions.
Use Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts play a major role in correcting the mistakes you make while typing. So, here some of the most used keyboard shortcuts.
- CTRL + Backspace : This is the most important keyboard shortcut that must be known. Basically, holding CTRL (Control) and pressing the Backspace key removes the left word completely. Generally, backspace is used to remove one character on the left.
- CTRL + Del : This is similar to the one above. CTRL (Control) + Delete removes the right word completely.
- Shift : If you press an alphabet after holding Shift, you can write the alphabet in capitals. If your Caps Lock is off (recommended), the alphabet you type ( holding shift ) will be capital. If your Caps Lock is on, the alphabet will not be capitalised.
These are the basic keyboard shortcuts you need to learn.
Resources and Guides
These are the top guides on Youtube for you to learn typing.
How I Type REALLY Fast (156 Words per Minute) – Ali Abdaal
I Learned to Type Fast (95 Words per Minute) – Mike Shake
I Practiced Touch Typing For 30 Days – Kalle Hallden
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