6 Effective Tips to Increase Your Typing Speed

Almost everyone uses computers these days and most people even use them for work purposes. Computers these days are used for almost everything, whether it is entertainment, obtaining information, earning money, working, or consuming content. Because of how we spend hours each day in front of computers and typing on keyboards, improving your typing speed is one of the effective ways by which you can enhance your productivity.

Simply by learning how to write accurately and faster, you can 2X your productivity, since you will be able to double your output. If you are wondering how you can improve your typing speed and type faster, then here are some actionable tips for you.

1. Adopt a Keyboard-Only Approach

If you really want to improve your typing speed, then try to use the keyboard only and avoid using the mouse or trackpad. The benefit of adopting a keyboard-only approach is that it is much simpler and quicker to switch between tabs and navigate on a computer using a keyboard compared to using a mouse to navigate around the computer.

The second benefit of using the keyboard only is that it can improve your typing speed and build reflexes, as you will be using the keyboard more often.

2. Learn Keyboard Shorts

Adopting a keyboard-only approach brings us to the next point, which is learning various keyboard shortcuts. Learning various keyboard shortcuts for various purposes can make things so much easier for you, improve your typing, and enhance your productivity. For instance, Option + Backspace on Mac or CTRL + Backspace on Windows can delete a whole word instead of an individual letter so that you won’t have to repeatedly press the Backspace button.

Similarly, the CMD + Backspace on Mac and Shift + Home + Backspace on Windows delete a whole line. So by learning such keyboard shortcuts, you can improve your keyboard practice and also improve your efficiency.

3. Practice on TypingTest.Co

Practicing your typing skills on TypingTest.co is one of the best things that you can do to improve your typing speed and accuracy since it is one of the best websites for improving your typing and learning typing, where you can find various types of typing tests including the one-minute typing test, three-minute typing test, and five-minute typing test. At the end of each session on TypingTest.co, you will get a words-per-minute (WPM) score with details about the number of mistakes you made and your accuracy.

If you take typing tests on this website on a daily or regular basis, then there is no stopping you from learning typing in just a couple of months. However, even if you do these typing tests on a semi-regular basis, it will still improve your typing skills and speeds significantly.

4. Keep Your Fingers in the Correct Resting Position

Keeping your fingers in the correct resting position is very important if you want to improve your typing, otherwise, it will take a lot of time for you to type faster. The correct resting position for fingers starting from the little finger to the index finger for the left hand is A, S, D, F, and J, K, L, ; for the right hand. To make it easier for users, keyboard manufacturers have built little bits on the keys F and J so that you can rest your index fingers on these keys without having to look at them.

5. Avoid Looking at the Keyboard

Most people who are beginners or just learning how to type are always tempted to keep their eyes on the keyboard because they don’t want to make mistakes and rewrite the whole sentence all over again, but if you really want to improve your typing skills and speed, then avoid looking at the keyboard. Yes, it sounds difficult to be able to type without looking at the keyboard but once you start doing it, it will become easier for you to write without having to look at the keyboard.

It might take some time but after a few weeks of forcing yourself to not look at the keyboard, your muscle memory will develop and you will naturally start to hit the right keys without even having to look at them. So it is worth all the hassle and effort to type without looking at the keyboard.