Mastering Your Typing Skills ⌨️
Become 2x productive by learning how to Touch Type
Hey learners,
In the coming weeks, I will be sharing personal improvement skills to work on. Not all of them will have a set curriculum and real-world projects, but they will ensure advancement in your day-to-day tasks and help to learn more advanced skills later on.
Today’s Skill: Touch Typing
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 2 seconds “When you are a self-directed learner, there is no authority figure that creates a system of rewards and punishments to motivate and grade you. You need to be self-motivated and define your own purpose for picking up a skill and then sticking with it.”
💡 Let’s Dive In
If you are like me and spend a lot of time with a computer, it’s worth you take the time and learn to type without looking at the keyboard a.k.a touch typing (if you currently type by the hunt and peck method).
What’s Touch Typing?
When I told a friend I am learning to touch type, he thought I meant learning to type on a touch screen 😂, but I can’t blame him, the name can be deceiving.
- Touch typing is typing without looking at the keys, or simply by feeling the keyboard. However, the sense of touch is only slightly involved since this typing method is governed by muscle memory through rigorous training. This way, the fingers get so used to typing that they instinctively go to the appropriate keys without the typist needing to see or even feel around the keyboard.
It’s done using a standard QWERTY keyboard with the hands placed at a starting location, called the "home row keys." Each finger of each hand has dedicated keys assigned to it which it can easily reach.
⌨️ Why learn? (Learning Objectives)
Everything in life is based on a computer these days. All the stuff you do on a computer becomes quicker.
Typing fast is a superpower and you can become at least 2x productive by improving your typing speed.
It encourages creativity - you can match your typing speed with your thinking speed.
"An average two-finger typist, typing at a speed of 30 words per minute (WPM), will type a 300-word section in about 10 minutes. A touch typist, on the other hand, typing at an average of 60 words per minute, can type the same section in around 5 minutes, effectively halving the time it would take to do the same amount of work."
👨💻 My Experience
The normal 2-finger method was working fine and my average speed was decent without looking at the keyboard. But after discovering Touch Typing a few months ago, I gave it a go and in the first typing test, my speed was only around 20 WPM. I challenged myself to improve my speed and after 8 hours of practice and I wouldn’t write any other way now. I am now at 47.2 WPM.
I’ve just been practicing 5-10 minutes per day for the last 3 months, a total of over 8 hours.
This guy went from 35 to 70 WPM just after 2 hours and 20 minutes of practicing in for 12 days. In my case, it took a bit longer.
My next goal is to hit 75 WPM in another 2 months.
📋 Your Next Steps
Learn the technique. Watch this 2-minute video on How to Type
Take a Typing Test using the new method and record your starting speed. Take it here.
Set learning goals - Decide your desired typing speed and the timeframe you will achieve it in.
Schedule your practice - preferably every day for 5-10 minutes. Set a daily reminder or use TabSnooze to open your typing tutor automatically.
Evaluate:
if you reach your desired WPM, first celebrate and then set a bigger goal to work on
if you’re short, test your technique, try a new platform, and keep practicing
If you already have a high typing speed, practice to increase your accuracy.
🖱️ Resources
List of over 50 free online resources here
My choice - Keybr and TypingStudy
Paid Courses:
Linked In Learning Typing Course (go for this if you have LinkedIn Learning Subscription - they share practice files which you can work on offline)
Tip: Irrespective of the way you choose to learn touch typing, it might seem a bit hard at the start. You need to unlearn the patterns you have been using for many years and develop new muscle memory.
Keep going for some time and you will soon see an improvement in your typing speed.
Learning to type is more about making ourselves productive than just improving the mechanical task of improving our typing so have fun along the way.Already know how to touch type?
Share this post with someone who might benefit from it:
🔖 Something to Read:
(Click on the title to read the full article)
I learned to touch-type at the ripe old age of 29. Was it worth it?
A Programmer’s 4-week journey of learning how to touch type - “I knew I could be more efficient. What was the harm in attempting to type with all ten fingers for a month and seeing how it went? I could always revert back if I didn’t see any improvements. So, at the ripe old age of 29, I decided it was about time I taught myself how to touch type.”
The Easiest Way to Live a Short, Unimportant Life
You can't control the amount of time you spend on this planet, but you can control what you contribute while you're here. These contributions don't have to be major endeavors. Cook a meal instead of buying one. Play a game instead of watching one. Write a paragraph instead of reading one. You don't have to create big contributions, you just need to live out small ones each day.
To receive weekly emails with a new skill, you can subscribe below.
Thank you for tuning in! This is my first foray into writing weekly newsletters so if you have any feedback or comments going forward, I’d love to hear from you.
See you next week!