Why you should learn to touch type
In a span of 6 month, I went from typing 30 WPM to 75WPM (words per minute) and it has doubled my productivity.
I have been using a computer for as long as I can remember and up until 6 months ago, I’ve never even heard of the term “tough-typing”. Over the years, I built my own technique for typing quickly, it involved only my index and middle fingers, and on occasion my pinky for pressing the ‘Enter’ and ‘Backspace’ keys. I used my index fingers for the space bar and I had to look down every time I need to type a symbol or a number. Looking back, this was an awful technique that was extremely inefficient.
Currently, I am studying computer science and I enjoy coding in my spare time; both of these involve sitting in the front of the computer majority of the day. As a result of my new found passion for coding, my current typing skills just weren’t cutting it any longer and that it was time to improve…and also I wanted to look like this when coding:
For a programmer, the keyboard is the most important device since its the only way to issue commands to the computer in a efficient manner. It is absurd for a professional guitarist to be unskilled with the guitar or a carpenter to be inefficient with a hammer so why would it be acceptable for a programmer to be an inept typist. The keyboard is your most important instrument and it is in your best interest to master it.
Yes, one might argue that typing speed is not crucial in a software development job, that problem solving is; I definitely agree. However, if you can type out your solutions quickly and accurately, you will finish a task faster and as a result you will have more time when you move on to solve other problems and a software engineer’s job involves a lot of communication with co-workers so you will become faster at responding to emails as well! Your overall productivity will see great improvement.
Over the last several months, I have used various websites to help me learn and improve touch typing. On average I would practice 15–20 minutes a day and that is all that was needed. I have made fantastic pr ogress in that time and the results have been very rewarding. My typing speed and accuracy have significantly improved as well as the ease and comport of typing. I am now at the stage where I don’t even think about the keyboard when I am typing. Typing is slowly becoming very natural; to the point that words appear on the screen without me having to consciously think about typing them.
If your job involves a lot of typing, I highly encourage you to learn correct technique and practice touch typing consistently.
The resources that I use and highly recommend are the following:
Typing Club
Typing Club will teach you proper touch typing techniques from scratch and if you are a beginner you will spend a lot of time unlearning your past habits. It’s free course and the exercises will help you learn the basics of touch typing and improve your speed significantly.
Keybr
Keybr is a great resource to use for daily practice. It offers great features and progress tracking.
TypeLit
TypeLit is a fantastic resource for improving tough typing. Typing out random text can get boring so the creator of TypeLit solves this. On this site, you can practice typing while reading classic literature. Read interesting books while learning to touch type.
TypeRacer
This website is perfect for those who are competitive by nature. Race other touch typist while typing out pieces of text from a variety of novels.
I hope that this article has convinced you of the benefits of touch typing and I hope that you stay motivated to spend 15 minutes a day practicing, it will be very rewarding.
Happy Typing!
