How to type faster on keyboard

Learn how to touch type

Touch typing is all about the idea that each finger has its own area on the keyboard. Thanks to that fact you can type without looking at the keys. Practice regularly and your fingers will learn their location on the keyboard through muscle memory.

Sitting posture for typing

Home
row position

Curve your fingers a little and put them on the ASDF and JKL; keys which are located in the middle row of the letter keys. This row is called HOME ROW because you always start from these keys and always return to them.

F and J keys under your index fingers should have a raised line on them to aide in finding these keys without looking.

Keyboard scheme

The color-coded keyboard under lesson input field will help you to understand which finger should press each key.

This method may seem inconvenient at first, but do not stop, eventually, you’ll find out that you are typing quickly, easily, and conveniently. To achieve the maximum result, choose a touch typing course for your keyboard layout and in the desired language.

Fingers
motion

Don’t look at the keys when you type. Just slide your fingers around until they find the home row marking.

Limit your hand and finger movement only to what is necessary to press a specific key. Keep your hands and fingers close to the base position. This improves typing speed and reduces stress on the hands.

Pay attention to ring fingers and little fingers, since they are considerably underdeveloped.

Typing
speed

Take care
of yourself

Take a break if you feel that you get distracted easily and are making a lot of mistakes. It is more productive to come back when you feel refreshed.

Psst! You could have more fun with groups. Invite your friends for collective studies and competitions. Groups work well for teachers too. And don’t forget to try the game mode 😉

Popular questions and typing tips

It’s very easy, the main thing is to follow a few basic tips.

The main thing is to practice a lot and regularly. Your muscle memory will improve with each lesson you take, and all ten fingers will know what and where to press the keyboard.

Exercise for only 15-30 minutes a day and in a few weeks, you will know the exact location of each key without even looking at the keyboard. But remember, it is important to learn correctly. If you fail to learn the correct positions, you will simply waste your time.

Don’t forget to check your progress from time to time — just take a typing test.

Ten-finger typing is the idea that each finger has its own area on the keyboard. Thanks to this, you can type faster and without looking at the keys.

It is essential to press the keys only with the finger that is designed for them. The color-coded keyboard under the lesson input field will help you to understand which finger should press each key.

With Ratatype you can learn the technique of touch typing with all fingers. The technique is the idea that each finger has its own area on the keyboard. Thanks to this, you can type without looking at the keys.

Our research shows that you can type up to 20% faster with this method. You can read more about this technique in our article on touch typing.

Practice continuously. Take a break if you feel that you get distracted easily and make a lot of mistakes. It is more productive to come back when you feel refreshed.

The key to the success of any activity is regular exercise. As soon as you miss a lesson, you lose the time that you have already spent learning the previous ones. Therefore, try to set aside 2-4 weeks for regular training every day for 30 minutes.

As with anything, regularity is the key to success. Strengthening muscle memory takes a lot of practice, and it is important that you exercise regularly.

Exercising 15-30 minutes daily will be more helpful than two-hour workouts once a week. It is easier to maintain concentration during short exercises, as well as being much easier to carve out time for them.

Practice whenever possible and not just with the Ratatype. Try to practice your touch typing skills while communicating on social media or when performing less urgent work tasks.

Typing test is also a practice. Take the test from time to time to see how much your speed has improved.

You cannot learn touch typing if you constantly glance at the keyboard. Try to remember the location of the symbols on the keyboard (our first 4 lessons teach just that).

It may seem too slow at first, but gradually, your typing speed will increase. The next 4 lessons will reinforce this result. Go through the first 8 keyboard typing lessons, achieve all the rewards, and in a few weeks, you won’t even remember that you typed differently.

How to Type Faster on the Keyboard

We’ve reached a point in time where we all need to type quickly on a computer keyboard for work, school, or for a friendly conversation. If you want to make it in this fast-paced, high-tech laptop-carrying world, it’s crucial that you learn to write faster.

Stay with us at OneHowTo and rest your fingers for a while: We’ll teach you how to type faster on the keyboard. Here’s how you do it.

Before getting to explain some professional tips to increase your typing speed by up to 300%, you must take into account that the hardware you use is very important. If you’re using a notebook or laptop, you should buy an external keyboard for maximum performance; those they include are usually too small for our hands.

Now take a look at the picture below; you’ll see how to place your fingers on the keyboard. In order to practice fast typing, there are plenty of online typography tests which you can regularly take to chart your progress.

In addition, typing programs and sites also measure your current typing speed. You should set yourself targets now that you know how fast you can type. As a point of reference, most secretaries are asked for 60 words per minute as a minimum. That’s actually nothing at all!

Join a forum, chat room or social network. Besides profiting from the numerous advantages of these sites, online communication with other people will further motivate you to type quicker. After all, you won’t want to leave your new friends hanging! Once you notice improvements, take another typing test.

If you want to read similar articles to How to Type Faster on the Keyboard, we recommend you visit our Computers category.

How To Type Faster: 8 Actionable Tips To Increase Your Typing Speed

Table of contents

These days we use computers for everything. From entertainment to consuming content to working, we spend hours each day typing on keyboards in favour of pen and paper. Because of that, improving your typing speed is one of the most impactful things that you can do to level up your digital productivity.

And I genuinely believe that anyone can become twice as productive solely by learning how to type faster.

Personally, I’ve been learning how to type faster since I was 13 and these days I type with an average typing speed of 155 words per minute (WPM) while the average typing speed is around 45 WPM. And professional typists’ speed (whoever they are) is usually around 90 WPM.

So, in this article, we’re going to lay out 8 actionable tips that you’ll be able to implement right away to type faster. These are the same steps that I took (and refined) several years ago which helped me increase my typing speed from regular 60 WMP all the way to 155 WPM.

And, in case you’re not completely sold on the idea of spending time learning how to type fast, we’re going to kick things off with 3 main benefits of having a fast typing speed.

The benefits of fast typing speed

⚡️ You’re more productive at a computer

These days most of our work revolves around computers and therefore around typing on a keyboard. If you can increase your typing speed to the point where you can type equally fast as you’re thinking then you’ll at least double your output.

And it doesn’t only apply to work-related things. You’ll get faster at responding to your friends, browsing the web, and going through the files on your computer. Essentially, time savings everywhere.

🧑‍🎨 It encourages creativity

The closer your typing speed gets to your thinking speed the more creative you become. When there’s no gap between you wanting to type something and actually doing it, you don’t interrupt the stream of thoughts.

And that’s especially helpful when you’re writing things like blog posts, email newsletters, or video scripts. Usually, when you’re writing a first draft, you want it to be messy and to include all of your thoughts, notes, and ideas so staying in the uninterrupted flow state is key. And fast typing speed is a crucial component to get there.

😮 It impresses people

Funnily enough, the most common compliment I got while I was working as a doctor was “Wow! You type really fast.” Sure, maybe that’s not the best compliment that you want to get as a doctor but hey, I’ll take that.

In all seriousness, fast typing is a great conversation starter and when someone sees you blast out 155 WPM, you’ll definitely draw some attention but in a good sense of that word.

8 tips to type faster

Now that you know why it’s worth learning to type faster, let’s go through 8 actionable tips that you can implement right away to level up your typing speed.

✂️ Learn keyboard shortcuts

The first thing would be to learn keyboard shortcuts to correct mistakes as it’s likely the most time-consuming thing when typing on a keyboard.

There are two shortcuts that are essential for fast typing.

The first one is OPTION + BACKSPACE on Mac or CTRL + BACKSPACE if you’re one of those heathens using Windows. This shortcut deletes a whole word so you won’t have to repeatedly tap Backspace.

The second shortcut is CMD + BACKSPACE on Mac and SHIFT + HOME > BACKSPACE on Windows. This one deletes a whole line.

So, the next time you make a mistake use one of these shortcuts and try to make it a habit.

🏋️‍♀️ Practice on 10fastfingers.com

I discovered this website when I was 13 and I haven’t found anything better for improving my typing speed. What 10fastfingers.com has to offer is 1-minute typing tests where you try to type as many words as possible without making mistakes.

At the end of each session, you’ll get your words-per-minute (WPM) score with some additional details like the number of mistakes you’ve made or your accuracy.

Even if you do these typing tests semi-regularly it will have a serious impact on your typing speed. In fact, one of my teammates, Angus, has run an experiment where he would practice on 10fastfingers once a week for a few months. And after these few months, he improved his typing speed from 65 WMP all the way up to 95 which is quite a lot for just one practice session per week.

🧑‍🎓 Practice on keybr.com

Keybr.com offers a similar solution to 10fastfingers but with a twist. Instead of testing you on the 300 most common words in English, it tries to discover your weaknesses and train you on those.

The way it works is that it first picks a few keys like E, N, I, T, R, and L and then tries to detect if you have problems hitting any of them. If that’s the case, it’ll produce more examples of words (usually made up) so you work on your weaknesses.

I treat it as an addition to 10fastfingers as I personally prefer to type actual words and typing on keybr.com may get a bit frustrating because it usually makes you type gibberish. But, on the other hand, if you struggle to hit some specific key it might be worth spending a couple of minutes every day drilling it down on keybr.com.

⌨️ Try to use only the keyboard

If you want to improve your typing speed and overall digital productivity it’s key to switch to a keyboard-first approach and use your mouse and trackpad as rarely as possible.

So, the question is how do we do it right?

And a way to go is to use an app called Alfred which replaces the built-in Spotlight feature on your Mac. You can think of it as Spotlight on steroids. Thanks to it you’ll never go back to manually looking for apps in your doc or using a launchpad view.

With Alfred, you can do everything from switching between apps to browsing the web and searching for things on Google.

For example, if you want to turn on Spotify all you have to do is click COMMAND + SPACEBAR and type Spotify. Just like using Spotlight.

But, if you want to search for a specific book on Amazon you can do COMMAND + SPACEBAR and type ‘amazon Wheel of time’ and it’ll automatically browse Amazon for you. Or if you’d like to quickly google something, use the same shortcut and simply type in your search term.

You can also customise Alfred to your liking so it works according to your preferences.

Keep in mind that if you just start using a new app, it might be tempting to use your mouse but a better way to deal with this new situation is to look for keyboard shortcuts and make it optimal to a keyboard-first approach. And, after a few sessions, it won’t feel intimidating at all.

And if you haven’t found your perfect keyboard, feel free to check out this video I made on The Best Keyboards for Fast Typing. I’ve tried out 6 of the best keyboards that are on the market to find out which one would be the best for fast typing.

🙈 Try to never look at the keyboard

It’s very tempting to keep your eyes on the keyboard, especially when you’re just starting out with this whole fast typing thing. But… a much better approach would be to make sure you don’t look at the keyboard (at all) and even drop a few WPM to do that.

There’s a high chance that you won’t be able to sustain your current typing speed after switching to the eyes-on-the-monitor approach but the whole point of learning to type faster is to never look at the keyboard and focus on what’s on the screen. So trust me, it’s worth the effort.

And after a few weeks of forcing yourself to never look at the keyboard, you’ll develop muscle memory and naturally hit the right keys without ever having to look at them.

By the way, I have a whole Skillshare class where I teach you how to Triple Your Typing Speed. You can try it out 100% free for the first month and I might be biased but that’s the most comprehensive guide to keyboard mastery that’s on the web. And since it’s free for the first month and you can check out other classes once you’re there, I highly recommend you give it a try.

🧘 Keep fingers on correct resting positions

You always want to be returning your fingers to correct resting positions. And that is A, S, D, F for the left hand and J, K, L, ; for the right hand.

Luckily, keyboard manufacturers help a lot with that as both F and J keys have these little bits on them which make it really easy to spot these keys without having to look at them (which, of course, we don’t want to do 😉).

By keeping your fingers in the right position you’ll make sure that your hands can cover the whole keyboard and that you actually type with each of your fingers instead of blasting through the keyboard using nothing else but your index fingers.

📢 Try to make noise

Even though this tip might sound weird I found that whenever I type with more force I also tend to type faster.

To be honest, I haven’t found any data to prove that scientifically but whenever I have to type quieter, for example when I’m in a library or I don’t want to annoy other people, my typing speed goes down. I’d say that it’s all about the mentality of typing with more force that then translates to faster typing.

🎮 Treat it as a game

Working on your typing speed may feel daunting and you may find that after a few days of practice nothing has changed or even worse, your WPM score went down.

So to keep yourself on the right track, try to gamify the process. This way, you’ll see the progress which is always encouraging.

Let’s say you’re currently typing with a speed of 60 WPM and you want to improve your score by 40 WPM to hit that sweet 100. Of course, it’s going to take some time and the gap between the two might look discouraging at first. What you can do is you can split this route into smaller milestones or levels. Level 1 would be to hit 65 WPM, level 2 70 WPM and so on and so on…

It’ll make the whole thing much more fun and achievable.

Personally, I’m at the stage where my next level is to improve how I use my left pinky. Currently, all I’m using it for is to click the SHIFT key while I should be using it to hit A, Q, 1, 2, and SHIFT so I’m clearly suboptimal when it comes to that aspect of typing.

So, as you can see, the game never ends!

Conclusion

Learning to type faster was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and since we’re all using our computers on a daily basis (and most of us use it for work) I believe that it can also become your best decision.

Sure, you don’t have to use all 8 tips. In fact, if you’re just starting out I’d learn the necessary keyboard shortcuts, practice using 10fastfingers, and above all else make the whole improvement process fun. Then as you’ll get better at better crashing through the next milestones try to add other tips like not looking at your keyboard to your current practice stack.

And, by the way, if you’d like to see me using and explaining all of the above tips I have a video on How I Type Really Fast which you’ll find down below.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this article, you should check out my Skillshare class where I teach how to Triple Your Typing Speed. It’s free for the first month and once you’re there you can check the rest of my 10 classes on productivity and various skills like video editing or starting your own side hustle. Till the next one. 👋

How to Type Faster (Tips and Tricks to Master Keyboard)

Living on the digital edge where typing is almost an everyday necessity, learning the ways of proper keyboard usage are crucial. Not only are you able to be more productive and get things done quicker with a keyboard, typing faster can enable you to keep up with your brain; that little voice in your head that has great ideas might only last for a few seconds before it’s forgotten.

In this article, we’ll give you 5 tips to get you started typing faster and proper. Some of the tips are quite obvious ones, but we’ll provide you with a few apps to help you practice and learn faster.

Complete Guide to Understanding Mechanical Keyboards

What is a mechanical keyboard and why are there thousands of people going crazy over them? You would. Read more

1. Get rid of bad habits

Getting rid of your bad typing habits is probably the hardest thing to do. You’ve probably been using the same typing method since you started using a keyboard, right down to where you place your palms. If you’re an FPS (First Person Shooter) gamer you’re probably used to placing your left hand on the WASD keys and may have stronger fingers on your left hand than your right (speaking from experience here).

Others may type only with two fingers, hovering over ten (or more) keys each, always having to keep their eyes on the keyboard to get the right keys. Although you might be typing fast with only half of the needed fingers, you have to put down your foot (or your hands) and break that habit immediately.

2. Use all 10 fingers

The next step is to relearn the correct finger placement on the keyboard. If you take a closer look at your keyboard, you’ll notice raised bumps on each of the F key and J key. This is to help you find the correct finger placement without having to look at the keyboard.

Ideally, your index fingers should rest on the F and J keys and the other fingers will fall into place naturally.

In the picture below, you’ll notice color-coded areas showing the keys covered by each finger. You’ll notice that the middle fingers and ring fingers are used for only a few keys on the keyboard, while your index fingers over the middle section of the keyboard. Navigational, punctuation and function keys are controlled mostly by the little finger.

If this confuses you, head over to websites like the TypingClub or Typing Web where they take you through each step to familiarize yourself with the keyboard. Some of their exercises only involve 2 fingers and as you go through their program, you’ll slowly master the way of faster and proper keyboard typing.

3. Learn to touch-type

Next up: Touch typing. It’s when you type without having to look at the keyboard. In fact, for seasoned typists, looking at the keyboard actually slows them down.

To get there takes practice, and we’re not talking about hours here. It could be weeks before you condition your fingers to take control of the keys ‘they’ are responsible for. Even if it slows you down, do not revert to how you used to type.

Now, try typing sentences without looking at the keyboard, and try to remember the position of each letter. If you have to sneak a peek at the keyboard, you can, but give the same word or sentence another run, this time without looking at the keyboard. It takes a while but if you are determined, it gets easier every day.

Eventually, you will know where each key is and from then on, it’s just a matter of picking up in terms of speed.

4. Navigate with basic keyboard shortcuts

It’s no surprise why Windows and macOS have many keyboard shortcuts. Since both your hands are already on the keyboard, why spend time using a mouse to navigate? You don’t have to remember every shortcut, just the more common ones.

Common shortcuts below are mostly used in word processing programs:

You can also use shortcut keys while browsing the web. Here are some shortcuts you could use to navigate in web browsers.

Finally, here are some common keyboard shortcuts for more general (Windows) navigation.

5. Practice with apps

Practicing typing on a keyboard need not be stressful (although it may feel like it at times). You can practice with a lot of typing games. Here are a few websites where you can learn how to conquer the keyboard and have fun at the same time.

TypeRacer

TypeRacer is a simple and fun game where each player is represented by a car. You’ll be given a passage of text from a book or lyrics to a song, you then type it out to move your car in a ‘race’ with other players. Whoever finishes typing the passage first wins.

Keybr.com

Keybr generates readable random words where some words are spelt incorrectly to help you remember common letter combinations better rather than typing random letters. It’ll give you statistics to tell you which area of the keyboard you are weaker in. It also offers words in different languages as well as different keyboard layouts.

Touch Typing Study

The exercises in this site get you comfortable with the finger placement by repeatedly asking you to type those letters with the correct finger. It is also offered in different languages.

Learn Typing

Learn typing is a basic looking website that has a ton of explanation good for beginners learning to touch type. Once you’ve gone through the basics, there are also more advanced exercises which you can do.

Learn Typing: Best Programs to Type Faster

When we think about the reward we will have for spending more time on this activity, we tend to think of an increase in beats per second. However, what will benefit first is our health since, to type faster, we will need a good position of hands, arms and trunk because.

Today we bring you a list of several free programs and websites for all ages with the aim that some will learn again and others will start with good habits.

Write faster without spending a euro

The first selection that we bring you is a list of five free programs that you can easily install on your computer. Thanks to routine and practice, you will reach cruising speed.

Klavaro, type with the most used program

It is the most popular option among all that we offer you today. We highlight its high degree of customization as it allows you to choose the keyboard or edit it and import texts. In addition, it allows you to interact with other users since it creates a global classification with all the results they receive via the internet.

Start improving your typing with this program.

KeyBlaze, maximum simplicity

Download the program here

TIPP, the perfect option

This German software will allow us to improve our typing from the first moment because it has the student in the focus of its utilities. Its twenty lessons are programmed to learn from your mistakes and help you to solve them and at the end of each one you will receive a report and advice to improve. In addition, to improve the user experience, you can change the keyboard, the typography and even use your own texts.

In addition, it is a multiplatform program –Windows, MacOS and Linux– and it can also be used online through the main browsers.

Learn to type from anywhere

If you do not want to install any program, but you want to increase your pulse rate per minute wherever you are, you can use these web pages with the security of achieving good results.

Ratatype, type at a good level

The design of this web page is very clear and clean and provokes the interest of the user. The learning takes place over fifteen lessons and three exams that aim to take you to 70 words per minute with a degree of success of 99.5%. This level is more than acceptable if you are not looking to become a professional since, for this, you would need to reach 100.

Click on the link to start your course.

Keybr, improve your keystrokes by competing with others

What makes this website special is the ability to play online with other users and thus improve our results. In addition, to demonstrate the effectiveness of its method, it includes several examples of former users and how they have improved their records thanks to their services.

Compete with other students on their website

Cursomeca, a more classic learning

If you are interested in learning to type online but prefer a more traditional method and do not need to interact with other students, we recommend this website. It has 21 lessons that will show you everything you must learn to get to type like a professional.

Register on their website to start improving.

Typing.io, the method for programmers

While the way an office worker and a programmer use the keyboard is completely different, the typing courses were the same for both professionals. To change this situation, we have this website that emphasizes all those keys that programmers use most often.

It has a free version that includes programming examples in 16 languages, correction in the event of a coding error and an interesting tool that informs you of the cost of your errors in relation to your successes.

The paid version saves the data of your exercises and informs you of the keys or symbols that we use most frequently. In addition, it includes 25 additional programming languages.

Start improving that part of the schedule on your home page

Typingstudy

Another website more dedicated to learning typing. In it we will find several lessons and basic concepts that will allow us to carry out all kinds of exercises to refine our writing and gain speed at the keyboard.

It also allows us to measure our typing speed with some of the various typing and speed tests so that we can see our progress. A very complete and completely free website that we can use without registration. Just go in and start writing.

Speed Typing Online

Another online solution to learn how to write quickly and correctly with the computer keyboard. On this page we can find a lot of exercises, all of them divided into two different levels to learn how to use our hands and know which finger has to press each letter on the keyboard. We will also find speed tests to learn about our progress, and even games to practice typing while having fun.

Its only drawback is that the website is in English, and we have no way of changing languages. Still, it is very easy to understand, so we will have no problems.

Typingclub

Another free website where we will find more than 100 interactive lessons divided into various levels. With them we can learn to write correctly and quickly with the keyboard. After each exercise, you will give us a score to motivate us to improve ourselves a little more each day.

One of its advantages is that, before starting each exercise, it shows us the correct position that our hands have to have to help us familiarize ourselves with the position of the fingers and know what position we have to use for each letter.

Children’s programs

Learning good child habits is the best way to avoid having problems when you are older. Bad posture when typing can cause pain in the joints, arms or back. Avoid these future problems for your children with the following web pages

Rapid Typing Tutor, types well from school

This program is specifically thought for children both for its design and its utilities. His teaching method begins with the correct placement of the fingers and hands and the use of the main keys, then progresses by showing how to write syllables and complete words and ends by taking tests.

The program is portable and can be installed on the school network. The teacher has at his disposal all the usage statistics generated by his students and, based on them, he will be able to design specific tests so that his students correct their most frequent errors.

Start the course by visiting its website

PacWriter, learn with a classic

Inspired by the famous PacMan, this simple video game will improve the pulsations of children. The dynamics are very simple, the character will be eating the balls if the player presses correctly and quickly the correct keys. Through various screens and levels it will improve the user’s rhythm while having a pleasant time.

If you want to improve your keystrokes with this video game, download it here

TypeTopia, stellar typing

From Holland comes this video game with versions in Dutch, Belgian, German, English and Spanish. Set in a spaceship in the middle of an intergalactic adventure, this learning method uses the extra motivation that video games give to get the user to develop good posture and typing habits.

This website also pays attention to users with different abilities and has developed its learning programs to include readers with dyslexia.

In addition, the system sends periodic reports to parents on the use and effectiveness of the system using their children’s data and statistics.