Home Forums BB Form Type Faster, Dammit – Touch Typing For Beginners

Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • beatrizw52
    Guest
    Post count: 2511

    we spend a lot of time interacting at

    our computers

    and still so many of us are rubbish

    at typing my name is dean

    i’m 34 years old and i type testing

    like this

    i use these six fingers but my index

    fingers do 90

    of the heavy lifting about two months

    ago

    i finally started to learn touch typing

    touch typing as far as i know the

    definition is just typing by touch

    so typing using all 10 fingers without

    looking down

    at the keys you’ll see when i’m working

    away like this i’m looking down at the

    keyboard most of the time then looking

    up to see that everything’s right and

    looking back down

    that’s a real slow process and also

    it’s not good for posture when you’re

    working at your desk i’m constantly

    hunched over

    and getting this like neck down posture

    it’s not great the main benefit of this

    is that it is much

    much faster than well not touch typing

    in this video i want to share my process

    with you

    there’s also an insight into what it

    looks like for somebody who’s more

    proficient at touch typing already

    somebody far better than me

    but they want to improve so there’ll be

    tips from both of us

    on how we are getting to what we want

    when it comes to typing

    my immediate goal is to get up to 30

    words a minute

    hopefully within the next two weeks but

    my more bigger picture goal

    is to try and get 50 words a minute

    within the next

    month or month or two depending how it

    goes

    my goal is i would really like to be

    able to type at 100 words per minute

    with like 99

    accuracy and it’s kind of an arbitrary

    target i mean 100 is just

    you know it’s a hundred but i also

    picked it because i know that it’s

    possible to get your typing speed beyond

    that i know that there are people who

    type at 120 150 even 200 words per

    minute but that’s a pretty decent goal

    you get diminishing returns as with any

    skill

    it’s much easier to go from zero to 50

    words a minute than it is to go from 50

    to 100 than it is to go from 100 to 120

    even

    and so i don’t necessarily want to

    invest that much

    time and effort into increasing my speed

    beyond a certain point

    but i think a hundred words for me is a

    good goal to hit it does take some

    practice and at that point you’re typing

    faster than most

    people it’s a good efficiency gain

    before i get into the step-by-step

    process of

    what i did as a complete and utter

    beginner to touch typing

    i’d like to share a very practical tip

    which i haven’t done yet and shane will

    tell you all about it and involves

    a can spray paint and this thing

    i learned touch typing it must be like

    20 years ago basically so long ago that

    i don’t remember exactly when it was it

    took me about three maybe four weeks to

    go from

    typing with two fingers looking at the

    keyboard to a sloppy form

    of touch typing it wasn’t perfect but i

    wasn’t looking at the keyboard anymore

    it was way faster than before three or

    four weeks is an incredibly fast time to

    make that kind of progress

    i’ve been at this for two months and i

    haven’t really got there yet

    so i’ve taken shane’s advice and i went

    to go get

    this

    got what i came for he’ll explain why

    now i don’t even know where i got this

    idea from but i just

    took my keyboard and i spray painted it

    black

    and so that i couldn’t see the letters

    on the keyboard anymore that’s the only

    thing i really did

    to to make the switch

    we are going to go and turn this

    into a functional tool all right

    [Music]

    it’s what the mosque was intended for

    are you done dean

    i also learned about the basics of where

    the fingers are supposed to go on the

    keyboard

    that’s the main thing i did i simply

    forced myself to learn how to type

    without looking at the keys by spray

    painting my keyboard black and

    initially it was very frustrating but i

    think

    i wouldn’t have made progress as quickly

    as i did

    if i hadn’t used this hack basically

    before you go and do this yourself

    just make sure that you’ve learned the

    basics because although my progress was

    slower than shane’s

    i’m glad i did that first and this is

    why

    the stunt i did with spray painting my

    keyboard black i think was really good

    to force myself to not look at the

    keyboard anymore

    but the mistake i made is that i didn’t

    insist on perfect finger placement with

    my typing

    and as a result of that i i learned and

    ingrained some of the wrong

    moves to make so some letters i would

    consistently type with the wrong finger

    or some letters i would not consistently

    type with the same fingers

    so for example t i would sometimes use

    my left hand sometimes my right hand

    to hit the t key and the problem is that

    you can train yourself

    into bad habits you can train yourself

    into typing in a way that is less

    efficient and less fast

    and so that is why i kind of had to roll

    back and i had to lose quite a lot of my

    speed and and

    start again to train myself to actually

    type correctly so that was the biggest

    mistake i made and i should have

    and i could have saved a lot of time by

    really insisting early on to always hit

    the right key with the right finger and

    train

    the right moves right from the outset

    when i first started using 10 fast

    fingers

    i would usually use my normal method and

    i would get up to about 40 keywords per

    minute

    but the moment i laid my ten fingers

    down to do the touch typing thing

    i would get a fat zero because i didn’t

    know the first thing about it i didn’t

    even know where my fingers needed to be

    placed

    i had this rough idea that a is

    somewhere in this region

    and m and m is down here and that that’s

    about it

    i i couldn’t commit to doing this so the

    first thing i had to do

    was learn the very basics the first step

    was touch typing tutor.net

    they take you through phases of learning

    the first phase is just learning where

    your fingers get anchored and that your

    f and your j these two

    are the ones that you’re gonna need so

    they’ll take you through a f f

    f space j j j j space

    f space j space and those kind of tests

    until you get into using the d and the k

    as well and and as it unfolds until you

    learn the whole keyboard

    i spent about an hour at this on my very

    first session

    and i can tell you one thing it was

    really fun it felt like a computer game

    like you you’re getting the combos

    fighting game it was really entertaining

    and an hour went by quickly for the rest

    of that week

    i easily did an hour every day because

    it really was

    entertaining and within five days

    i had mapped out the keyboard so phase

    one was

    a walk in the park it was a breeze phase

    two

    is all about getting faster when you’re

    going through the beginner phase

    they really drive home the point that

    accuracy is more important than speed

    and i just want to reiterate this right

    now that is true

    in the beginning and it is true even

    later when you’re proficient

    not too long ago i could type at about

    75 words per minute

    but it wasn’t clean so i was making a

    lot of mistakes it felt kind of fast but

    it really wasn’t that great what i did

    is i started training for

    precision so then i slowed me down a lot

    but right now i’m back up to

    65 sometimes 70 words per minute but

    with 95 to 99

    accuracy and i’m not making these

    mistakes anymore i’m not typing

    the wrong way anymore

    the last thing you want is to be

    reaching for that backspace key

    all the time so it was a real real

    important thing that when i went back to

    10 fast fingers

    that i didn’t go for the one minute

    speed but that i actually focused on

    the accuracy and after my very very

    very first attempt i got to a total of

    five words in a minute and i was proud

    of myself

    by the end of that session i think i got

    to seven maybe eight words once

    and and that was good for day one

    slowest smooth

    smooth is fast is just one of my

    favorite idioms i really like it and it

    applies

    to any physical skill i would say and

    even many other skills

    it’s about the fact that when you rush

    you’re generally

    not actually fast you’re not actually

    doing a good job like it feels like

    you’re going fast

    but you’re not actually fast so that’s

    true for pretty much anything you do

    and with typing i can tell that that’s

    definitely true and you can find that

    out for yourself too

    if you type as fast as possible you

    could be like frantically rushing and

    making tons of mistakes so you have to

    go back and correct mistakes and so on

    so it’s frantic and it feels fast but

    it’s not actually fast

    and if you slow down and instead type at

    whatever speed you can keep up

    consistently smoothly

    you’ll actually overall be faster and

    the goal of course

    is to be able to type fast without being

    in a frantic rushed state

    type fast while being relaxed the third

    phase

    is daily practice i kept this routine up

    of putting at least

    10 minutes in every day of going to 10

    fast fingers

    and doing the test at least 10 15 times

    and yes i was getting faster after

    another week i was getting up to about

    11

    sometimes 12 words per minute what was

    better than the speed

    is that all of a sudden i started

    getting automated combos coming out of

    me

    there was t s and e r and e d

    and g h would just happen without me

    having to really think about

    where they are and i could feel this is

    this is definitely

    getting somewhere although the

    the the flow was getting better the

    speed still didn’t improve i never

    beat the 15 to 16 word mark and i was

    getting frustrated

    so part of the process is i added in

    another

    practice every single day and that was

    free writing

    i would literally just open up a blank

    page and start typing away

    things like i am typing without looking

    at my keyboard right now and i would

    keep going until i had finished

    paragraph

    punctuation came into it capital letters

    came into it

    and i could see my progress in real time

    where i am right now is still stuck in a

    bit of a plateau

    i’m reaching 18 to 20 words and i’m not

    getting past this and it’s very

    frustrating

    i think the problem comes in that when i

    go and do work

    like emails or writing scripts i’m going

    back to my old method

    and then i’m only doing the touch typing

    while i’m practicing

    i have to start forcing myself to bring

    the touch typing into my everyday

    practices

    the next phase for me right now is to

    black out

    my keyboard in about a month i will give

    you an update on how the blacked out

    keyboard

    is working for me

    the keyboard you type on definitely

    makes a big difference and

    i’m not a i’m not a full-blown keyboard

    nerd not yet anyway

    i got this package which is something

    from kickstarter from a while back

    serious package with new keyboard

    this is my hopes for fast

    typing finally

    [Music]

    it’s a lot of packaging that’s the one

    i’ve been using so far

    i managed to connect it and this is the

    moment of truth

    loading up the typing test

    that’s actually that actually went

    better than i expected

    so i was kind of thinking that oh my god

    it’s gonna be a disaster you know trying

    to get used to a new

    keyboard which is true right i made

    many mistakes because my fingers are

    just like trying to go

    where they’re used to on another

    keyboard but actually 68 words per

    minute

    at 94 accuracy that’s actually pretty

    damn good for a first

    for a first attempt so yeah that’s

    that’s promising

    this is a rabbit hole that goes super

    deep maybe we can there’s a there’s a

    linus tech tips video where they test

    loads of different key switches

    maybe we can link to that as this gives

    you an impression of just how deep this

    rabbit hole goes

    but at any rate the keyboard is

    definitely important and

    the main thing i would look for is

    there’s a lot of stuff to not put up

    with with keyboards

    if you have squishy keys keys that are

    kind of

    or just you know wiggle around too much

    and keys that just don’t give you

    a clear feedback a clear tactile

    feedback for

    the key press has happened and also if

    you have keys that are maybe stuck or

    you have to hit them a bit harder for

    them to work or sometimes you have to

    hit them

    twice and stuff like that right old

    keyboard stuff

    just don’t put up with that at all it’s

    costing you so much time

    so that’s the first thing i would say i

    think a lot of people have old keyboards

    they’ve had forever and they’re used

    to the the ways in which that keyboard

    sucks but you have squeaky keys and

    squishy keys and keys that don’t work

    properly and all this kind of stuff

    throw it out get a new keyboard

    personally i like keyboards with a short

    travel slim

    keyboard and that’s because i’m i’ve

    worked on laptops for years and years so

    i’m generally used to that kind of

    slim flat keyboard but that’s just a

    personal preference and what i would

    recommend above anything else is to try

    different keyboards and see how they

    feel

    and i have to say like i find keyboard

    reviews

    pretty unreliable for this kind of thing

    and an example is

    i’m using this keyboard right now the

    logitech ergo something something it’s a

    fancy looking you know one of these uh

    ergonomic wavy looking keyboards right

    it’s just not a great keyboard i have i

    don’t think i’ve ever seen a review

    a negative review of this keyboard you

    know if you look up a review people were

    seeing the praises of this keyboard

    but it’s just not not a great keyboard

    i’m slower typing on this keyboard than

    on many others and many cheaper ones too

    so if you’ve never even considered this

    and right now you know

    coveted times you can’t probably can’t

    really go to a shop and try out

    different keyboards seems like a bad

    idea right now so

    a good idea would be to try you know

    maybe buy three cheap keyboards

    that are different just to get a feel of

    how the keys are different get a feel of

    what you prefer

    i think that might be a better move than

    to buy one expensive keyboard only to

    find out you don’t like that kind of key

    switch

    so i think that’s what i go with you

    have to try different keyboards to

    to figure out what you like and also you

    can speed test because you will find

    that just by switching keyboards some

    keyboards will make you slower and some

    will make you faster if you’ve watched

    the video all the way to the end here

    then clearly you have a vested interest

    in upping your typing game

    i’d be interested to know where you are

    right now so

    go and do a speed test and send us or

    share the results with us

    also if you have any other ways of

    getting your typing up faster success

    stories

    share those with us too and let me know

    if you’ve tried the blackout

    blackout key method and how that went

    that’s all from me

    i’ll see you in the next video

    [Music]

    you

Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
Reply To: Type Faster, Dammit – Touch Typing For Beginners
Your information: