I spent too much time trying to improve my typing speed by doing the wrong things. After much experimentation and many dead ends, I discovered several techniques to consistently boost my typing speed by 5 wpm at a time. Repeating this process allowed me to exceed 100 wpm so I’ll share the techniques as well as my mistakes to save you from repeating them.
Although this might seem unattainable at first, if you can tap each finger just twice per second then you can exceed 100 wpm by using all your fingers. Typing 100 wpm requires surprisingly slow individual finger movement when you consider the frequency of letters in the English language and account for the fingers required to type each letter. All that’s needed is proper techniques to reduce the mental overhead.
This started with a failed bet to improve my typing speed from 50 to 100 wpm within the calendar year. I tortured my hands for 2 hours daily but still lost that bet. My main mistake was thinking that I just had to spend many hours of practice to achieve this goal but it turns out that training techniques are much more important than pure practice.
This article has 3 sections:
- Motivation
- My greatest mistake
- Techniques for exceeding 100 WPM
Motivation
There are 3 main reasons to improve your typing speed:
- Communication overhead: Most jobs involve some form of typed communication and this increases as careers progress. As a senior software engineer, I spend increasing portions of my time writing proposals, design documents, training material, documenting best practices, and responding to peers besides my regular responsibilities. Typing faster has a significant productivity impact on these other activities.
- Cognitive load: Most adults read 250 words per minute and speak 120 words per minute so our thought process is at least as fast as that. Regular typing behavior interrupts our thought process as it’s too intentional rather than an automatic subconscious activity. We switch back and forth between thinking about the real problem to thinking about typing and this interrupts our flow. Reducing the cognitive load provides greater mental clarity and enables us to focus on the problem rather than on typing.
- Remote work: The industry is shifting towards more remote positions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. This trend results in increased typing since writing a message is often more convenient than trying to find a timeslot for a call.
We usually type at 80% of our top speed so whatever speed you envision to be ideal for your profession, add an extra 25% to it when thinking about the speed to aim for in typing tests.
My greatest mistake
I practiced as much as I could ignoring signs of muscle fatigue for prolonged periods of time and hit a painful dead end. I got carpal tunnel and this put my career at risk. Carpal tunnel is caused by pressure on the nerves in the wrists due to inflammation in the area. It’s important to eliminate the actions that cause discomfort to avoid long-term impacts.
I took these 3 steps to reverse the impacts and I’m happy to say that all symptoms completely disappeared over 6 years ago:
1. Switched to a mechanical keyboard
I switched to a mechanical keyboard as my hands would get tired when typing on rubber-membrane keyboards due to the force required to quickly tap keys. Mechanical keyboards are much gentler so I can type all day without fatigue.
Mechanical keyboards have various types of switches with some types geared towards gaming. Cherry makes the most consistent switches in the industry and their MX Brown switches provide a good balance between tactile feel, actuation force, and noise.
Note that mechanical keyboards make a clacking sound when the plastic keycap hits the base of the keyboard. This can be distracting to co-workers so I recommend installing rubber o-rings underneath each keycap. Installing o-rings also makes it gentler on your joints and some companies such as WASD offer mechanical keyboards with o-rings pre-installed.
2. Improved posture and keyboard angle
Propper posture is important as minor discomforts get amplified over time.
Keep the keyboard flat without raising the back and keep your wrists at an elevated height to reduce the strain on the back of your hands. Also, use a wrist rest so that your wrists don’t drop too low when resting your arms.
I recommend investing in an office chair that has good back support with armrests that slide and tilt inwards.
3. Switched to Colemak
Although not required for fast typing, I pulled out all the stops and switched to the Colemak keyboard layout. Colemak is much more efficient than QWERTY and even more optimal than Dvorak. Colemak is fairly easy to learn as it only re-arranged 17 keys. Most keys and shortcuts are the same as QWERTY and common characters were moved to the home row to reduce finger movement.
QWERTY requires more than double the amount of finger travel compared to Colemak on average. The reduced travel made me feel like I was stopping halfway because I was used to doing much more work for the same output.
I’m glad I switched to Colemak as the benefits from that one-time investment will last forever. However, most people use QWERTY so this change isn’t practical if you’re in a position where you need to use a shared environment.
Techniques for exceeding 100 wpm
These are the principles that I used to exceed 100 WPM starting with foundational techniques and building up in complexity:
1. Measure your progress often
- Perform typing tests regularly and monitor your progress for speed and accuracy.
- Don’t restart the test if you start making mistakes. It’s important to capture your progress with mistakes as these techniques will improve your accuracy. Mistakes are a natural part of typing so we want to build a habit of typing accurately and being able to quickly correct mistakes.
- I recommend alternating between 10fastfingers.com and monkeytype.com with monkey type configured for 60-second tests.
2. Take one step at a time
- Slow down and focus on techniques as this will speed up your learning and make you reach higher speeds.
- Don’t rush through all the techniques at once. Bookmark this page and only go to the next step once you’ve mastered the current step.
- Don’t strain while typing. If you’re tense while doing a typing test then you’re rushing too much.
- Stay calm and relaxed. I achieved my fastest speeds in a calm state of mind which took me by surprise as it didn’t feel like I was trying hard.
3. Prefer short and frequent sessions
- Building muscle memory requires frequent reinforced learning. Replace long training sessions with frequent short ones.
- Practicing 15 minutes daily is much better than practicing 2 hours on weekends. Short sessions also make it easy to squeeze them into your schedule and turn them into a habit.
- Don’t over-practice. Limit sessions to at most 20 minutes with no more than 2 sessions per day.
4. Pressing keys
- Type keys with quick taps instead of pressing into them.
- Don’t power-hit the keys as that’s slower but aim for fast light taps.
- Practice double-tapping each finger to get used to quick light taps.
5. Finger placement
- Use the correct finger for each letter. In the above image, each color is hit by the same finger.
- Your index fingers should be on the F & J keys. The other fingers should rest beside your index fingers. This is the home row.
- Use both hands when capitalizing letters. Press the letter with one hand while using the pinky of the other hand to hold the shift key.
- Press the space bar with the thumb of your dominant hand.
6. Dealing with mistakes
- Strive for accuracy first as errors have a large impact on speed since they stop the flow of typing.
- Don’t use the backspace key multiple times. Instead, delete the entire word by using Ctrl + Backspace (or Option + Backspace on Mac)
- Correct the entire word with Ctrl + Backspace even if you only need to fix a single character. This gets you in the habit of typing that word correctly in one go and re-enforces the sequence of keys that led to this error. This is also faster as you won’t need to think about the details of the mistake so it makes it easier to remain in the fast typing flow.
7. Transition between words
- Reset your position by moving your fingers back to the home row before starting the next word. This is crucial for reaching high speeds so that typing a word requires the same gesture regardless of the word that came before it.
- Some words make you stretch so don’t try to move each finger back to the home row right after each keypress but rather whenever it’s comfortable to do so before starting the next word.
- Resetting your position will feel like an extra step at first but it will turn into muscle memory so you’ll forget that you’re doing this after a while.
8. Mental model
- Memorize the relative offset for each finger from its resting position on the home row.
- Here are some examples of the mental model using the QWERTY layout. Place your fingers on the home row and look at the keyboard for each of these examples:
f = Left index finger (no offset)
h = Right index finger left (note the left relative offset)
r = Left index finger up
y = Right index finger up-left
Single quote = Right pinky right
Comma = Right middle finger down
b = Left index finger down-right
0 = Right pinky up 2
5 = Left index finger up 2, right
- Practice air-typing. Close your eyes and move your fingers in the air typing sentences using the relative offset mental model.
9. Use a typing trainer to re-enforce the mental model
- A typing trainer is the best way to build your mental model as it introduces a couple of characters at a time.
- When focusing on 2 keys, don’t hover your fingers over those keys but instead move your fingers back to the home row after each keypress. The only exception is when typing the same character twice in a row.
- After trying dozens of trainers (paid & free), my favorite is the free trainer at www.typing.com.
10. Don’t look at the keyboard
- Looking at the keyboard will make you develop bad habits that will limit your potential. Typing slower without looking will speed up your pace of learning.
- When you get stuck, look at the keyboard to figure out the relative offset, delete the entire word, and type it again without looking.
- When you lose your position on the keyboard, find the bumps on the F and J keys and reset your fingers on the home row without looking.
11. Use Keybr
- keybr.com is a free learning tool that adapts to focus on your weaknesses. This is the best tool for increasing your speed and accuracy in the shortest amount of time.
- Keybr monitors the speed of each key and misspells words to focus on your slowest keys and to fix bad muscle memory.
- Using Keybr will feel frustrating the first few days as it’s working on fixing your bad habits. The lessons will put you in scenarios that you’ll struggle with so expect to be much slower than normal at first.
- Navigate to your keybr profile and look at the speed of each key in the Key Typing Speed section. Use Keybr daily until you’ve reached a speed plateau.
12. Master fundamentals before continuing
Master the techniques presented so far and use each of those before continuing. The techniques past this point are advanced and should only be attempted once you meet these requirements:
- You type each key with the correct finger.
- You type without looking at the keyboard.
- You return your fingers to the home row before starting the next word.
- Your accuracy is at least 95%. If your accuracy is lower, slow down and increase your accuracy with Keybr as accuracy is very important before continuing.
- Your individual key speeds stopped increasing in the last few days on Keybr.
13. Change your pace for each word
- Typing all words at the same speed will limit you to the lowest common denominator.
- Slow down for tricky words, speed up for easy words, and type the rest at normal speed. Eventually, more words will seem easy and the repeated speed-ups will increase your rhythm so your speed will drift upwards.
14. Look at the next word while typing the current word
- Seeing the word appear as you’re typing is great when learning to touch type but this will hinder your progress as you reach higher speeds.
- You should be looking at the next word when typing the current word. Look at the next two words when the next word is short.
- Looking at the current word makes us pause and process the next word before continuing to type. This also creates a feedback loop where we confirm correctness one character at a time so we hit a ceiling with our speed due to our reaction time.
15. Reset your typing noise tempo
- We build a mental tempo based on the noise of keypresses and this creates a mental block that locks us at the current speed.
- Put on headphones once in a while and type for 5 to 10 minutes to push your fingers to their max without being coupled to your current tempo.
16. Type using rolls
- Tap 4 fingers on your desk in a roll with a rhythm similar to what we do when bored. Notice that you’re thinking of this rhythm as a whole instead of thinking of tapping one finger at a time. This is what it should feel like to type at higher speeds.
- Instead of attempting to type one character at a time, plan for a gesture that hits several keys in one roll.
- Replace common portions of words such as “tion” from “lotion” and “celebration” with rolls so that you start typing individual characters and finish typing the word with a roll.
- Break words down into rolls and execute the rolls. When you’re executing a roll, prepare your fingers for the next roll since it’s much easier to think about a roll instead of individual keys.
17. Configure a faster pace for you to chase in Monkey Type
- Monkey Type has many configurable properties so I recommend tinkering to find your preferred style.
- One option is to setup 2 carets with different styles; one for your current position and the second will move at a steady pace.
- Configure the second caret with a custom speed set between 5 to 10 percent faster than your current speed to help increase your pace.
18. Build a vocabulary of words
- Although there are well over 100,000 words in the English language, less than 1 percent of those are enough to write 99 percent of sentences.
- Build a vocabulary of words for the most common three to four hundred words so you can type them with a muscle-memory gesture and fall back to regular typing for the rest.
- 10fastfingers has a top 1000 typing mode which allows you to practice the most common words focusing on 50 words at a time.
- Aim for 5 WPM higher than your current speed and practice each set of 50 words until you reach that target.
- Switch to the next set of 50 words after each 5 WPM speed increase to avoid building too much muscle memory for the current words.
- Once you’ve reached your target with the top three to four hundred words then increase your target by 5 WPM again and repeat from the beginning.
19. Approach your goals from different angles
- These techniques take time to build muscle memory so be patient.
- Don’t get frustrated when you don’t feel like you’re making progress. Take lots of breaks and look back at how far you’ve come.
- When you hit a plateau, tackle your goal from a different direction by focusing on a different technique from this article.
20. Have fun
Improving your typing can be challenging at times so I recommend relaxing between sessions with some typing games. Note that some games such as ZTYPE can build bad habits so be aware of that.
Here are my favorite typing games:
So that’s all there is to typing fast. Now you too can exceed 100 WPM with some practice.
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