Typing fast on a keyboard is one of the most useful and impressive skills ever. It is especially a must-have if you often use computers (like a lot of people). As I had never taken any course or lesson on how to type fast and effectively, I had to do my own research. Hopefully, I found a lot of useful resources online that I’m going to share in this post.
Content:
Theory: how you should place your fingers
Practice: 3 websites to improve your speed
Tips
Bonus: my data
Conclusion
Theory: how you should place your fingers
Typing fast’s most important element is position: by having the ideal position, you lower the number of hand movements therefore gaining time.
I’m going to show the most widely used “ideal” configuration that I try to use on a QWERTY keyboard. Ready? Let’s go
First, place your two indexes on the J and K. You should feel two little bars - they’ll help you return to this position.
Next, place all your fingers on ASDF for the left hand and JKL; on the right hand. You should have something like this:
-image taken from the website keybr
Now that we’re all set, I’m going to explain how it works:
As shown in the picture, each finger is part of a column (QAZ for the left pinky for example) - this means that this finger will take charge of this column of letters: every WSX will be typed by the left ring finger, IK, will be typed by the right middle finger and so on.
TO NOTE: the left index takes RFVTGB in charge and the right index takes UJMYHN.
Practice: How to improve your speed?
I’m going to show you how I did to improve my speed: I used 3 free websites:
1. How fast are you? 10fastfingers
First, you can train yourself on a 1-minute speed test on the 200 most used words on 10fastfingers (or any other website - just type “typing test” on google and you’ll find plenty of them. 10fastfinger is just the most famous one). It is useful to have an idea of your current level so that you can compare your level with your level in a few days. You can also compare your speed to other people: check the table below to see if you are better than most people! The blue dot is the average speed. You can also train yourself using 10fastfingers; however, I’d recommend using another website (see below) to train yourself, as 10fastfingers is mainly focused on testing your speed rather than improving your level.
-image taken from TypingTest
2. Train yourself! typingclub
Typingclub comes in a set of lessons that focus on a specific number of letters. Lessons are divided into categories: Home row, Top row, Bottom row... This makes typing easy for learners because we know what we are focusing on.
Typingclub has many advantages: first, it is free (just create an account), second, the lessons are extremely short - 1 to 2 minutes on average, and third it goes beyond typing: it teaches you for example about posture, muscle memory… All valuable advice you should take into account.
All in all, it is kind of an "all-in-one" website to teach you keyboarding. The only downside is its length: even though each session is extremely short, there are still 685 lessons.
TIPS:
If you want to practise on texts rather than random words (like 10fastfingers do), you can directly jump to the "advanced level" and pick a lesson: it will only be a text that you'll have to type.
Your speed will probably be lower in typingclub than in 10fastfingers - at least that's what it did for me- I recommend taking 10fastfingers as your "what is my speed" website.
3. Train yourself (2)! Keybr
I, in fact, discovered keybr before typingclub but I think typingclub will teach you more efficiently typing. I still wanted to mention it, because it did help me.
Keybr is a useful website that had been designed to teach you how to type fast. It will focus on one letter at a time so that you’ll be sure at the end that you’ll have a good level for all the letters. Keybr will make you work on imaginary words (as they are focused on a few letters at the time). I didn’t find it disturbing, but I know that some may be put off by it.
You won’t need to create an account to save your score - just keep the tab open. You can also change a lot of things like the keyboard, the style… in the settings
Here is a screenshot of the website - it is very easy to use so no need to explain anything
-keybr’s screen
GENERAL TIPS:
Here is a selection of tips and observations I made while training myself for fast typing:
Persevere! It’ll feel weird at the beginning, but as you practice, it'll become easier
When you first start, try not to look at the keyboard! It will considerably increase your speed. Some letters may feel odd, but keep going with the configuration!
Check your position! You should have your back straight, elbows bent and having your fingers not too flat (for piano players, you can place your fingers as if you were playing the piano)
Make regular pauses and not too long sessions. You can take a maximum of 20 minutes per session and continue a few hours later/ the next day. I found it efficient, as a few hours later typing would become much easier!
In the beginning, your score using the “ideal” configuration might be lower than your usual configuration. That is totally normal and fine! I’ll quickly increase as you train.
Although people tend to teach you to use pinkies, they have relatively low strength, so I recommend using your ring fingers instead (use your pinkies for occasional shifts)
Your position can differ a little from the ideal configurations. I for example, tend to use my left thumb for the c and v
Bonus: my personal data set
As a little bonus, here is the data that I collected over my training so that you have an idea of how much time it’ll take.
To note: My training wasn't really balanced, I started off with lots of dedication over about 6 days, and then did it only occasionally.
Values put in words per minute (w/m or wpm)
Start of the training: 30/03/2022
Time of writing: 26/04/2022
Sessions:
Without ideal configuration
30/03/2022 : 10fastfingers 1-minute test : 44 words per minute on average
With the ideal configuration
Using keybr (30/03/2022-01/04/2022)
30/03/2022: 1-hour session. My speed went from ~3-7 word-ish (yes, I was REALLY bad at this) to 24 words per minute
31/03/2022 at ~8 a.m: 10 minutes. Speed: from 27 to 29
31/03/2022 at ~12 a.m: 15 minutes, speed: from 27 to 23 (letter g gave me a hard time)
01/04/2022 at 8 a.m: 5 minutes, speed: from 31 (!) to 44 (best score: 47!! Idk why but I was on fire this day)
01/04/2022 at 10 p.m:
letter c: from 40 to 46 (48 best)
letter h: from 38 to 36 (42 best)
letter m from 32 to 44 (best 47)
letter p 34 (1 try and I moved on to the next letter)
letter b: from 26 to 25 (;-;)
Using typingclub (01/04/2022-06/04/2022)
2/04/2022 : best speed : 51
After this, it was occasional speed tests using 10fastfingers
Using 10fastfingers
12/04/2022: best speed: 66
24/04/2022: best speed: 66 (again?!)
Notes:
My “worst” letters (those I spent a long time mastering) :
G
C
B
At time of writing, I still need to look at my keyboard from time to time
Starting off with lots of sessions helped me create a basis of knowledge to practise on - my main training was the daily typing I had to do (typing a paragraph for school, writing an article like this one...)
Conclusion: speed increase from 44 WPM to 58 WPM on average over 27 days
Conclusion
As a last note, I want to point out that this is only my own experience and that I may not have practised in the best way. Please tell me if you know any other way to improve typing speed quickly. Check the links below to explore more.
-image linked to its original website
Websites to test your speed:
Monkeytype : VERY cool interface
Typingtest.io : you have you speed while you type and that's VERY cool (even though I don't look at it)
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