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  • beatrizw52
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    how to type faster on computer keyboard fast can you type most people type

    somewhere between 30 and 40 words per

    minute which is not very fast especially

    considering how important typing is and

    how much of our communication happens

    essentially through the keyboard

    [Music]

    let’s say you currently type at about 40

    words per minute a bit above the average

    and let’s say you spend two hours per

    workday typing it’s probably more but

    let’s just lowball this figure that

    means that you’re spending about 500

    hours a year typing again it’s only on

    work days which again it’s kind of an

    understatement here so low end you’re

    spending 500 hours a year typing

    and you’re probably not going to stop

    typing anytime soon so over 10 years

    that’s basically 5 000 hours spent

    typing now if all you do is you invest

    some time a few hours spread over a few

    weeks

    to let’s say double your typing speed to

    80 words per minute

    over 10 years that means you’re either

    saving two and a half thousand hours

    of your time

    which equates to over a hundred full

    days of your time that you get back

    or more likely you basically double your

    output and whatever it is that you do

    whether you write at your job or you do

    your own writing your creative work

    whatever it is doubling your output will

    make you more valuable will make you be

    able to produce more value do more and

    better work and again there’s basically

    no downside all you’re doing is you’re

    cutting out time wasting this is why

    touch typing is really an essential

    productivity skill and it is well worth

    investing some time in getting your

    typing speed up and increasing our

    typing speed is exactly what we have

    been doing and will be doing this is why

    we’re back both of us

    with touch typing the sequel in the

    previous video we made on this topic

    dean and myself started on our journeys

    from different points in trying to

    improve our typing speeds

    dean was basically starting from scratch

    learning how to do touch typing and

    myself i had to kind of relearn it

    because i had gotten sloppy with my

    touch typing my goal was to go from

    around 65 words per minute to a target

    of a hundred words per minute in the

    meantime we’ve each spent some time

    practicing and pursuing our respective

    typing goals and let’s have a look at

    what we learned along the way and what

    recommendations for tools and best

    practices we can pass on to you if

    you’re a complete beginner to this and

    you’re starting to learn touch typing

    from scratch check out the first video

    we did on this topic which includes what

    i think is the best life hack to force

    yourself to quickly learn this skill

    so i had learned the basics of touch

    typing but i still couldn’t beat the 20

    words a minute mark and after all the

    time and effort that i had put in this

    was very disheartening to improve i did

    what we do best at icario and that was a

    personal challenge this time it was

    seven days of touch typing

    90 minutes a day that seems like it may

    be a bit too much but let’s see what

    happens

    to hopefully get to 30 words per minute

    within a week my approach to improving

    my touch typing speed was to do it

    consistently and in small doses i didn’t

    do any like heroic huge practice

    sessions but instead i just inserted

    around 10 sometimes 15 minutes of typing

    practice in my morning routine what i

    found is that while i did improve the

    faster i get the more i’m plateauing and

    the longer it takes to add more speed so

    while i started at around 65 words a

    minute i am now kind of grinding against

    that 90 word a minute limit and i

    haven’t managed to reach those 100 words

    per minute yet here are a couple of tips

    that help me along the way with this

    practice that i recommend you try out as

    well the first and this i heard from

    many many typists who are much faster

    than me is to focus on accuracy first

    it’s really important that you actually

    have great accuracy and you use the

    correct finger placements if you rush it

    you might just be practicing the wrong

    way to type and then you have to unlearn

    that which will set you back this is

    actually what happened to me originally

    and you can learn more about that in the

    first video on the topic for my seven

    day challenge i used a learning platform

    called kieber which we’ll talk about a

    little bit later in this video basically

    i saw a sharp increase in my skills it

    definitely worked i honestly don’t know

    how my fingers know what they’re doing

    but it’s working that is the best typing

    i’ve ever done i finally

    flipping cracked it

    i am so happy i’m only three minutes in

    on day two my hand saw

    like he’s up highs and lows i’m at a

    stuck point again it’s like repeat

    repeat repeat repeat repeat um

    44 minutes in

    i’m battling it’s like oh

    and it’s the same as yesterday

    goes up

    goes down

    can’t concentrate at all god damn this

    is grueling 20 minutes left and

    everything’s green at the moment i don’t

    want to carry on because my score is

    good right now now i’m dipping into

    tired again it’s like

    i was i think this just about mentally

    broke me today we are in a new office

    let’s do it

    after 11 o’clock at night i’ve left it

    too late in the day got a call early in

    the morning if it wasn’t for that i

    think i’d push through my speed is

    dropping constantly and my error rate is

    going up constantly so i’m i’m pretty

    much feel like i’m worse on all fronts

    i don’t know what the just happened

    quite a bit tears all over my

    keyboard um

    i was really getting frustrated with

    this typing thing

    and i put in some music

    and i got completely lost in the lyrics

    that the typing just started flowing

    without mistakes and

    no

    that’s something just happened

    it’s so stupid

    i composed myself

    i put the song back to the start

    and with and then i started typing

    it was flawless

    like i had like two minutes of just no

    mistakes

    i had to stop because i couldn’t see my

    people

    [Laughter]

    because i don’t understand what’s

    happening

    i’m finally finished this has been the

    most

    grueling challenge i have ever done

    90 minutes of touch typing is no joke it

    is absolutely

    hardcore shane was right that was too

    much there were diminishing returns at

    some point

    it was a crazy journey and it’s a story

    for another time

    um but it definitely

    definitely pushed me

    beyond

    my original goal of 30 words per minute

    i got actually considerably higher in

    the first few days even up to 47 words

    per minute so

    it was hectic the problem with the

    platform for this challenge is that what

    happens is you learn one letter at a

    time and in the seven days although i

    made massive progress

    i didn’t get through the whole alphabet

    so when i went to real world

    applications it didn’t kind of work out

    it didn’t help my overall touch typing

    ability except that the letters that i

    did do i got really good at after this

    challenge concluded i obviously still

    wanted to get through to the end of the

    alphabet so i continued with a daily

    practice but i reduced it from 90

    minutes to 20 minutes

    slow and steady while we’re on slow and

    steady let’s go over to tip number two i

    love the saying slow is smooth smooth is

    fast and i think it applies to many

    things in life touch typing being one of

    them although having said that tip

    number two is about getting through

    plateaus when you notice that you’re

    plateauing you’re just not getting

    faster even though you’re practicing i

    recommend that you switch up the pace

    i would do practice sessions where i

    deliberately slow down and i try to go

    even slower and try to hit 100 accuracy

    but then i would also do practice

    sessions where i’m pushing speed where i

    make more errors than usual but i’m just

    trying to get my fingers used to moving

    faster this works really well i use this

    method which i called the goal switching

    method countless times throughout my

    touch typing journey

    in the beginning it came in really handy

    when i got stuck on certain letters

    notably the letter p i spent forever

    trying to get the p stage passed

    it’s because i’ve got a bit of a funny

    pinky and i had to learn like a

    workaround to to hit that p changing up

    the way that i approached that way

    sometimes i would just go for the the

    speed and other times slowly but kind of

    learn the movement that i would need to

    do to make sure that i was accurate

    every time eventually it just fell into

    place from going between these and the

    combination of those two things almost

    like to shake loose from a plateau that

    can help me then make a little more

    progress when i return to a speed that

    feels more normal again and tip number

    three perhaps the most important of all

    do your touch typing in real life

    it is not very useful if you do your 10

    minutes or 30 minutes or however much

    practice

    of touch typing in a touch typing app

    and then you switch to email or slack or

    whatever else that you’re doing and you

    start you know two finger typing again

    you start looking at the keyboard again

    this is where i went wrong every time i

    did try and apply touch typing in

    everyday practices i would get so

    frustrated because i just i couldn’t get

    it right in the beginning this can be

    difficult but force yourself to do touch

    typing

    in real life with the typing you do for

    work

    and for private communication and

    wherever else you use typing like i said

    it can be frustrating it can feel slow

    at the beginning but you’ll actually get

    in much much more practice doing real

    typing than just sitting in some of

    these typing tools for a few minutes a

    day the conclusion to all this for me is

    that this experiment is well worth it

    even though of course i’m slightly

    disappointed that i haven’t reached my

    100 word per minute target yet

    and i have to say i thought i would get

    there sooner but i guess i

    underestimated the challenge a little

    bit having said that my typing has

    gotten faster and the target is

    arbitrary i mean ultimately every little

    bit that your normal typing gets faster

    saves you time makes you more efficient

    and makes you more productive so it is

    well worth doing even if it takes a bit

    longer to get to where you wanted to go

    and longer it did take for me

    my hours were higher than the average

    according to kieber it takes the average

    person between 5 to 10 hours to go from

    20 to 40 words per minute it took me

    35 hours so basically i took longer than

    most people but the good thing about

    that is that if i can do it you can

    definitely do this so where to from here

    obviously i’m going to push my goals up

    higher to get faster but more

    importantly what can i do differently to

    make this process better and faster the

    answer that i was looking for is that i

    need to use more tools a variety of

    tools for different things

    and for that let’s go back over to shane

    who’s got the breakdown maybe you’re

    wondering what is the best tool to use

    to learn torch typing and after having

    spent many hours testing and using

    countless online touch typing tools i

    can tell you that the answer is there is

    no single best tool but i think there is

    the best combination of tools to use

    let’s start with the first one which is

    typing club typing club is a great place

    to start if you’re starting completely

    from scratch this free online tool will

    teach you the very basics of touch

    typing and then build that up over

    countless lessons but even if you

    already have some proficiency at touch

    typing you can take a test and then it

    will insert you in the part of the

    course that matches your level so

    basically no matter where you are with

    your touch typing skill this is a good

    basic tool now the advantage of typing

    club is that it teaches you real typing

    including punctuation capitalization

    symbols numbers and so on

    for just testing your raw typing speed

    this is not ideal but for actually

    improving your real world touch typing

    this is a great tool to use

    next i recommend that you check out

    keeber which is key e y b r dot com

    keeper is a pretty specialized tool

    which is there to teach you specific

    finger combinations and basically what

    this tool does is it tests your

    weaknesses it basically looks for

    specific keys and key combinations where

    you are slower than on others or where

    you make more errors and it will then

    have you practice those over and over

    again so you can polish out your

    weaknesses keyboard is a challenging

    tool to use and i think it’s really good

    for finding those weaknesses and

    polishing them out for that kind of

    precise intervention however i wouldn’t

    recommend that you only practice using

    this tool because well several reasons

    first of all you’re never typing real

    words it’s always throwing just like

    these made up words and key combinations

    at you and so to some degree this just

    doesn’t translate into real typing as a

    keeber veteran i’ve been doing this

    longer than shane i can say that they do

    actually have real word options the

    longer that you do it the more the words

    become real you can also make some

    adjustments you can add capitalization

    and you can add punctuation

    so it does have this built into it

    but there is one big problem and that

    was the problem that prevented me from

    getting better in the real world and

    it’s this when it comes to making

    mistakes keyboard when you mistype will

    just keep the cursor on that letter that

    you mistyped and when you backspace or

    delete nothing happens and it just

    continues once you then type the right

    character and in this way it just

    behaves nothing like real typing in real

    typing you have to delete the letter or

    delete the word and start from scratch

    when you make a mistake

    and that’s also something you need to

    practice obviously ultimately we want to

    make as few mistakes as possible but one

    part of touch typing is to proficiently

    correct your mistakes and with kieber

    you never practice that this is

    absolutely the reason why i couldn’t

    apply touch typing in the real world

    every time that i did make a mistake it

    would completely stump me and prevent me

    from kind of moving on

    and it would throw me off to the point

    that i would just

    feel like i want to return to the the

    normal my old way of typing just to get

    the job done it wasn’t slowing me down

    it was completely inhibiting me from

    from making progress despite all the

    incredible results and the stats on the

    platform of me getting like 40 and 50

    words per minute with 100 accuracy it

    didn’t mean anything in the real world

    if i couldn’t

    live with the mistakes that i was making

    next monkey type monkey type is a tool i

    recommended the one that has become my

    go-to the one that i use the most the

    strength of monkey type is really the

    user experience and i don’t mean that

    just in the sense of it’s a nice looking

    app it kind of feels good to use

    although that’s also true

    the important thing is that in some

    subtle ways it is just better at

    teaching you touch typing than other

    tools what monkey type does really well

    is give you the prompts the words that

    you need to type and place your cursor

    as you type among them and when you make

    errors it manages to simulate real

    typing so you have to correct your

    errors as you would with real typing

    while still combining that with the

    prompted words now if you haven’t

    practiced touch typing then that

    probably doesn’t mean much to you but if

    you compare this to many other touch

    typing practice tools you’ll quickly see

    what i mean monkey type just does a

    better job of giving you these word

    prompts and simulating real typing and

    real error correction and doing it all

    in a user interface that just

    works another strength of monkey type is

    that it’s highly customizable you can

    customize the length of your typing

    session so you can practice like short

    bursts speed typing or you can do longer

    typing sessions so it’s great for doing

    your daily practice sessions you can do

    a two-minute run or even a custom length

    run so you can do a 10-minute run if you

    want you can also customize the source

    words that it uses and you can choose

    whether it includes something like

    punctuation or just lower cap words

    overall this is just a really

    well-rounded tool that will help you do

    your daily practice and customize it to

    your needs and finally two more

    recommendations 10 fast fingers and type

    racer both of these typing tools are

    great if you have a competitive streak

    because both of these have an emphasis

    on competing against other typists on

    leaderboards or in the case of type

    racer you’re literally competing against

    other typists in real time so if you

    have a competitive streak if you know

    that that’s something that motivates you

    then these tools are great to keep you

    going and keep you engaged i use 10 fast

    fingers to track my real progress to see

    how i’m changing over time with a very

    similar setup or a similar lesson as

    opposed to being in platform where

    you’re making progress on different

    lessons but you don’t see the

    application of it in the real world i’m

    very proud to say that in qbr i’ve hit

    the 60 word per minute mark but more

    importantly in 10 fast fingers i can see

    that i’m on average getting between 40

    and 45 words per minute which is a

    reliable statistic

    and i really look forward to pushing the

    bar now with the new tools that i have

    available to me to try new things and

    get my average

    into the 60s range

    and then after that

    shane i’m coming for your score

    i’m not gonna rest until i do

    all of these tools are free to use and i

    think you’ll get the best out of them

    and the best practice if you use a

    combination of all of them that’s it

    from us in this video

    you’re gonna see the third installment

    of this touch typing series only when

    either shane gets to a hundred words per

    minute or i get to around 70 on average

    that’s the next goal that we’ve set

    before the next episode will be worth it

    and of course only if there are new and

    valuable lessons to share with you that

    made that progress meaningful if you do

    have any questions though that we

    haven’t answered in one of our two

    videos then obviously let us know in the

    comments below and also

    i’m probably gonna make another short

    video which is gonna just be for fun

    about the grueling events that happened

    during my seven day progress my seven

    day challenge that were just

    nuts

    it was crazy

    but that’s it and we’ll see you soon

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