I actually taught myself to touch type much later on in life (I really regret not learning at a much younger age but our school was never really interested in teaching us to type properly) and of course I’m very jealous of you young typers out there who can type at phenomenal +120 WPM speeds
. Keep it up!
I should add that I don’t claim to be able to type particularly fast but that shouldn’t stop me from sharing some of my insights. I type in English (and occasionally German) on a Qwerty based layout. An apology if this is a bit long.
1. Practice!!! As many people have said. If you realistically want to build up your speed, you need to be practicing daily or even several times a day. Take some time out every evening and a period (say 30 minutes) and just devote that time to safe, uninterrupted typing. By all means set your own standards but realistically you aren’t going to see a change if you are just type once a week.
2. Set and reassess regular goals to achieve. If you are just satisfied with your current standard of typing (and this applies to anything in life) you’ll have no motivation to change it and better yourself. I like to target my goals in blocks of 5 wpm. So when I achieve, say 80 wpm as a new personal best, my next target is 85, then 90 and so on.
3. Music is a fantastic aid and can help you enter an accelerate performance state. You’ll notice a huge difference from typing with no music and typing with your favourite song on. I don’t recommend only being able to type with music, however, if you’re trying to hit a new personal best, get your favourite song playing!
4. Think about the actual process you’re going through when you type. I’m not sure if this works for everyone, but I’ll explain how I first started typing.
Initially, I focused just on the letter that needed to be typed, thought about the corresponding finger and then went on to the next letter. You will get quicker at this but it will only get you to a limited speed. The next transition you will probably notice is a chunking of syllables. So for instance “thr” “out” “ence”. If you’re still at the single letter stage, try practicing syllable blocks (e.g. type “ough” 20-50 times in a row) repetitively until it starts to feel more automatic (by automatic, I mean the same way you think of hitting a single letter, you see the syllable block and instantly hit the corresponding letters). I’m sure you can find a list of the most used syllables for practice or make your own.
The next transition up from that I noticed was that I started to then think and react in entire words. So rather than thinking about each individual letter or the syllables that make up the word, my eyes would read the word and my fingers would have an instant reaction and hit the corresponding keys. For me at the moment, this is generally for 1-3 syllable words. I don’t think there’s really a way to learn this other than through practice of the previous stages. You could try burst typing where you type a word as fast as possible and then stop after, look at the next work, think about the motions you need to make briefly and quickly type the word as fast as possible. What I would say is make sure you practice words you particularly struggle with. If you know you struggle with Q or Y words, get practicing them.
I’ve started to notice a newer transition just recently. So this time, I’m actually reading a few words. I wouldn’t say that I’m reading 3 words at once (although that would be a nice blocking progression to get to) but I’m more reading one word and quickly skipping to the next few but storing them in my short-term memory to be typed. So it’s almost like I’m reading 1-3 words ahead of what I’m actually typing but this does depend on language complexity. This is where I am so far. I don’t know if this helps as a guide to other people for what to expect or work towards, if you believe you are at a certain level. But I should add that everyone’s brain works differently and of course we’ll all read slightly differently and at different speeds.
5. Practice difficult-polysyllabic language! It saddens me to see how little people use the more complex language typing (advanced) test. Practice typing large words will help you two fold. It will increase the time your fingers are engaged (finger patterns) between rests (space bars) and will increase your ability to concentrate on converting what you’re reading to what you’re typing. Challenge yourself!
6. Finger dexterity exercises. I’m a guitar player and noticed that if I play my guitar before typing, rather that typing “cold”, my average WPM tends to jump by about 10 WPM. I found this out by accident but it makes sense when you think about it. So if you play the piano or do any other finger intensive activity, try doing that before you type. Alternatively, you could grab a stress ball and use more finger based squeezing (safely, of course).
8. Especially in the early stages, you must try and commit yourself to a Zen-like perfection of typing (i.e. accuracy). Forget about focussing on a high WPM. I know it’s all you think about sometimes but if you are making more than 10 mistakes when you type, you really need to be working on your accuracy. I find this involves slowing down your typing pace and getting into a comfortable rhythm where each key is hit confidently in time and you work towards 0 corrections. Some of the fastest WPM people will set will have few, if any, corrections. Also, if you have words you always seem to struggle with, iron out the bad habits!
9. Rhythm is so important with anything you learn that requires a repetitive movement and speed. Think of a drummer when he’s learning a complex beat to be played at speed. I sometimes like to think of the way I type like running. So I have a comfortable pace that I can type at where I have a constant rate/rhythm of hitting characters. To me this is like a long distance run. I also have certain blocks of words that I can type at an accelerated pace but in a more sporadic fashion. Both have their place but both need training. I feel my overall pace is dependent on both.
10. Don’t question yourself. Occasionally, I will get to certain words where I’m unsure if I’ve hit a key hard enough and my mind has a brief moment where it is trying to decide what key to hit next. This split second obviously wastes time you could be typing. I found the best remedy to this was just to go with your initial gut instinct and carry on typing. I realise this sounds contrary to my above Zen-perfect typing point but ultimately, the ideal scenario is where you are reading a screen and intuitively typing with no real conscious thought. This requires full trust in your own abilities and will only really work when you practice maintaining your accuracy. I do not suggest trying this if you are making more than 10 mistakes in a minute.
11. Clear your mind. Try not to be thinking of other things while you’re typing. I find this can be a cause of hesitation, however, I find once I am typing, my mind just wants to drift. Be strict and focus.
12. Try typing for longer periods of time. One minute sprints are great, however, typing solidly for 5 minutes is fantastic practice. Try longer if you’re up to it. At this point, it’s also worth typing ideas in your head down as this will help build on your ability to get ideas on a page.
13. I've come to learn that competitions in life are really useful for making you push yourself that extra bit. So enter the typing comps, set a benchmark and then try and beat the person above you. Use it as a motivator.
So there are other keyboard layouts out there that you can use. When you start getting to really high sub 200 speeds, that is when you’re really going to have to rely on your keyboard layout, such as Dvorak, as it really becomes a numbers/stats game to give yourself the edge or relying on natural ability (in my opinion). Personally, I don’t feel the need to learn another keyboard layout as some people have recorded some phenomenal speeds in Qwerty and it's probably the most likely keyboard layout you will experience in a random environment. I’ve heard arguments for certain layouts to prevent carpal tunnel and repetitive strain injuries but I really think the evidence is a bit mixed on that.
One final suggestion that I’ve not yet tested falls into this idea of rhythms. I notice that I can sometimes up my typing speed by playing songs with faster tempos. Again, this makes sense because your brain looks for the rhythm whilst you are typing and then tries to sync you in with it. Also, as a guitarist, when trying to learn a very fast solo/complex riff, one method you can use is to get a metronome, learn the song at a slower tempo and slowly build your speed up using the metronome to guide your practice. I don’t see why the same principle can’t be applied to typing. I’ve not tested the method myself but would be happy to report back on it. My hope is that it would increase your average WPM (i.e. long distance typing) and then that would help boost your personal best. It’s all just speculation really and probably very boring haha!
At the end of the day, this is all about what you want to get out of typing. Yes you can skip wrong words by hitting the space bar to get a better WPM but it’s not really improving your ability to type. The true masters are people who can type absolute gibberish and symbols at over 150 WPM. It’s probably the truest form of your ability to touch type, although, I do understand the argument that you’re not going to type gibberish on a day to day basis (well, maybe if you code) so why bother?
I hope these thoughts and observations give some people something practical, other than more practice, to try and improve their WPM. Keep at it everyone and happy typing!