HuntMode’s Hints: Easiest Way to Increase Your Typing Speed

Are you frustrated by how long it takes for you to type something, an email, a paper, a document? Here’s a way to painlessly increase your speed over a short time period.

Typing fast, especially in today’s world, is a valuable skill and can make the difference in getting a job, getting a project done, emailing that letter out before the end of the day, posting here on Word Press or Facebook. The faster you type, the more productive you are. Speed isn’t everything, of course. You want to increase your accuracy as well.

Basics:

For those of you still typing with two fingers in the hunt and peck method, you can go here, here, here and even watch videos, and take typing speed tests for the classic keyboard position and practice until you can fluidly type without watching your fingers on the key board. Note: amazing how many hits I generated by Google searching “correct finger position for typing.”

Increasing Your Speed:

Here’s the clue: To increase your speed, you need to be able to forget the keys and the individual letters. You need to see and think words and type words as a unit. You can avail yourself of the same Google search “increase typing speed, ” or you can do it the way I did, which was a lot more fun. Drumroll, please…

Here’s the key: if you try to increase your speed while writing something, you’ll sabotage yourself and neither your speed or your typing will improve. That’s a creative process. We’re not looking for that. We’re looking for dexterity and hand-eye-brain coordination. If you’ve ever hit a ball, you’ve already conquered this technique, just apply it to typing.

Find an author you love and, preferably a book you haven’t read yet, and type it up. Ridiculously easy, right?

If you like what you’re reading and typing, your eyes, fingers and brain will coordinate faster and more effectively when you want to know what will happen next.

Start with a paragraph, type a page, then type a chapter. And frankly, on the first paragraph, go for speed, just to see where your weaknesses are, spell check will point out every error anyway…., which will be sufficiently annoying, you’ll be tempted to give up. Don’t.

Try the next paragraph, and then relax, go your regular speed and the desire to know what will happen next gradually takes over and your hand-eye-brain coordination kicks in to deliver. Trust me. I went from about 45 words per minute to 60 typing up my favorite writer ~ in this case, it was the handwritten pages of my first book manuscript. Eventually, I was a legal secretary and legal word processor and typed 115 words per minute.

‘Tis the Christmas season. Give yourself the gift of increased typing speed. Merry Christmas!