How to Increase Your Typing Speed and Accuracy

With the following tips, taught by the old-school typing teachers, you'll quickly increase your typing speed without sacrificing accuracy. This can speed up that novel you're writing, or land you that secretarial position you've been coveting.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Quality keyboard (not a laptop)
• Masking tape

1. Practice proper posture and keyboard placement. Sit straight, feet flat on the floor. Keyboard should be at approximately waist level, arms should be at a perfect 90-degree angle.

2. Cover your keys with masking tape. This prevents you from the temptation to resort to "hunt and peck" typing and forces you to rely on learning exact finger placement without looking at the keyboard. Focusing on your script or screen, and breaking the habit of looking at your keyboard, leads to faster typing speed.

3. Use the pads of your fingers, not your fingernails/fingertips!

4. Practice your typing skills by reading basic practice phrases and lettering and using online tutorials and/or games. Use the resources listed below, which will help you become more familiar and comfortable with the keyboard.

5. Type along with news reports, TV broadcasts or just people speaking to help improve speed through forcing you to type various words and phrases. Don't worry about missing phrases or words, just keep typing.

6. Rely on professional typing tutorials and phrases, such as "See the quick brown fox jump over the lazy dog." These phrases use every key on the keyboard (characters and numbers aside) and help you practice various movements.

7. Think the words while you type. You aren't typing letters, you are typing words. Thinking by letter, number or character will prevent you from becoming faster and more efficient.

8. Practice frequently. Simply typing daily will help improve your skill. As with any other skill, practice will improve ability and skill.

Tips & Warnings

• Position and keyboard placement are important! If your keyboard is raised so that your arms are not at a 90-degree angle, you are more likely to increase pain and decrease speed. Proper posture and placement allow for reduced chances of carpel tunnel and smooth movement of the hands across the keyboard naturally, without pressure or stress. This natural movement allows for greater speed and accuracy.
• Immediately correct any errors you made.
• If working on increasing speed without sacrificing accuracy, avoid using "ergonomically correct' keyboards. These keyboards do not allow for efficiency and are unnecessary to your task.
• Practice frequently. Simply typing daily will help improve your skill.
• A keyboard that forces you to raise your hands above a 90-degree angle is a recipe for carpel tunnel. Do not place your keyboard on your desk.
• Some tutorials instruct students to say or whisper the words while they type. Doing this is discouraged, as it may lead to a habit that could be found annoying by co-workers.

Resources

• Fun and practical exercies
• Not fun, but good exercies
• Typing course
• Free online typing games

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