0 To 50+ WPM Journey (How I Increase My Typing Speed)

I was always impressed by the sound that the keyboard produces and after reading the book “The first 20 hours — How to learn anything fast” (Chapter 6) my interest and curiosity in typing increase to a high level. So, I committed to learning touch typing in July 2020, and now (It’s Dec 2020) my typing speed is 50+ WPM. So here in this article, I want to share my complete journey of learning finger placement to achieve above-average typing speed with you. At the end of the article, I will answer the most common questions about typing speed and touch typing and also I will give my three tips to increase your typing speed super fast.

“Why is your Way” — Why To Learn To Touch Typing

Life is too short for wasting time. So, why you learn the skills that will completely don’t matter at all. Ya, when to come typing our mind say that’s normal we take the wrong way of typing for guaranteed and many people don’t even know the typing style they are using is wrong. So here are the main reasons for learning to touch type:

1. Increase your computer productivity — This is the reason that’s why I learn to touch type. I want to learn code so to do that effectively and fluently I need to type fast. If you are the person who sits down on a computer for 6 to 8 hours typing matters to you a lot. You can save lots of time if you have learned touch type.
2. Saves your time — I didn’t think I want to explain this point at all. You know better than me that’s why you interested in this blog
3. It’s impact overall of your life — Youtuber Ali Abdal said in one of the recent videos of them that “I think just being able to type super fast makes such a big difference to everything because it makes life so much better so that’s why we should improve on our typing speed. I’ve actively worked to improve mine and it’s had a big knock-on effect on my life”.
4. Nothing to say more just learn typing and see the results

Success is all about consistency around the fundamentals By Robin Sharma — Learning The Fundamentals Of Touch Typing

I don’t search on google to learn touch type because I already know the basics of it from my sister(who knows how to touch type) and from the book that I talked about earlier. But I want to learn finger placement correctly so I search on youtube and I found a 10 days course on touch typing (It’s in Hindi). I did that course and followed all exercises. After 10 days, I measured my speed it is 15–20 WPM. I was also forgetting the finger placement so for that I need to practice more.

After one day of completing that course, I practiced on typingtest.com and also did some competitive typing on typerush.com and practice one paragraph of lorem ipsum but I was not improving that much and did not get the results that I want. So, from there I moved to search on some good typing websites or resources to learn more because I didn’t learn shift key properly and forget some finger placement.

My routine for these 13 days:

1. Day 1 — Learning the finger placement and practicing the text — asdf ;lkj (Write that at least 50 times)
2. Day 2 — Learning the complete home row practice the text asdfg ;lkjh (Write that at least 50 times)
3. Day 3 — Practicing home row with the words that include the use of keys of only home rows. (Write them at least 8–10 times)
4. Day 4 — Learning complete upper row and practice the text qwert poiuy (Write that at least 50 times)
5. Day 5 — Practicing upper row with the words include the use of only keys of the upper row and home row (Write them at least 8–10 times)
6. Day 6 — Learning complete bottom row and practice the text zxcvb /.,mn (Write that at least 50 times)
7. Day 7 — Practice words that include the use of all 3 rows — bottom, upper, and home. (Write them at least 8–10 times)
8. Day 8 — Learning the complete number row and practicing that with writing some phone numbers at least 50 times
9. Day 9 — Learning the shift keys and additional keys include -=’[]\ and practice them with some names and all signs with (write that 50 times)
10. Day 10 — Practicing whole keyboard keys with typing 2 paragraphs (one easy and one hard)and writing both paragraphs at least 10 times
11. Day 11 — Just measured typing speed recorded 14 WPM and enjoyed the completion of the 10-day typing course.
12. Day 12 — Wrote one paragraph of lorem ipsum and did two five-minute typing test on typingtest.com and do 10–15 races on typerush.com
13. Day 13 — Same as Day 12
14. Day 14 — Same
15. Day 15 — Same
16. Day 16 — My mood was in a sudden change I didn’t practice lorem ipsum in return I practiced lyrics of a song from the movie Laal Kaptaan “Kaal…hai” and after writing the lyrics of that song 2–3 times I did two five-minute typing test on typigtest.com and 10–15 races on typeracer.com

All I know is that I never wanted to be average by Michael Jordan — Crossing Average and Above-Average Typing Speed

After going through multiple websites, I choose typingclub.com because it includes multiple lessons and my sister used this website to learn touch typing. But there was a twist after I completed 127 lessons of Typing Jungle on typingclub.com. I was passionate about a perfect score and after that every lesson I did on typingclub.com and wanted a perfect score and if I didn’t achieve it I did that lesson again and again until I scored a perfect score. So from there, it took me approx 40 hours of practice to score average speed consistently in typing tests. And at the same time, I was also looking for a website that saves my typing test result, and then I found typing.com. The main reason was to save my progress chart of typing which started on 9 Aug 2020.

On 15 Aug 2020, I scored 40 WPM for the first time it is the highest speed of mine that time and I could count myself as an average typist after that my speed never goes down to below 30. In the middle of making multiple records, I made the goal for myself to achieve 50 WPM consistently in every test and the deadline for the goal is the end of this year 2020 because I think achieving 50 WPM is easy but consistently scoring 50 WPM is difficult so I set this deadline. This practice and typing routine (written below) was consistent till 17 October and after that, I just got bored so much that I left typing completely. And the other reason is that I had already achieved my typing goal and scored 60 WPM twice.

My routine for these days:

At least 40 Mins of practice on typingclub.com and 2–5 tests on typing.com (This is the same for all days you can see in the chart that I showed you earlier which days I did not follow my typing routine. When I don’t do typing practice on typingclub.com, then I also not go for typing test to measure my speed)

At the end of August, I find 10fastfingers.com so after that I took 2–5 tests on that website. You can see my 10fastfinger.com profile from here.

What After That? — How much typing speed you want?

The question of how much we want? comes in our mind many times — It doesn’t matter that it is either for money or for typing speed. I left my typing routine after 17 October but I was missing something in my daily routine because it became my habit of typing and taking tests and to score more than yesterday. So I again started my typing practice on typingclub.com on the 3rd of November but I left that from 7 November. There were many reasons but one of the main reasons is getting bored because I practiced a single lesson so many times until to get a perfect score on typingclub.com.

So this situation went on the whole of November till 2nd December until I started typing again and this time I didn’t commit these mistakes again. First I analyzed my mistakes not to set a goal. Now I set a goal of 100 WPM+ to achieve before the end of 2021 and the second is I left typingclub.com to practice. Now you can see my consistency in the cart from 2nd December to today’s date. Ya! My typing speed is not improved, even many times it goes down because I left practicing complete for more than a month it takes time to improve the graph into linear again. I will share my plan for 50 To 100 WPM in my upcoming posts.

Answering the Most Common Questions On Touch Typing Or Related to Typing Speed and Some Tips To Increase Your Typing speed fast

Question — Is Learning touch typing and increasing speed through touch typing is hard?

Answer: Typing is neither hard nor easy. It’s all about your attitude or perspective about it. Once you change your perspective or attitude about things, everything gets easy. At starting it seems hard but when you just achieve the first highest score then it’s all seem fun.

Question — What influences typing speed?

Answer: There are only 3 factors- Muscle Memory, Text you are typing, and Concentration.

Question — What is average typing speed?

Answer: It’s different on different websites. The average WPM on 10fastfingers is 42 WPM. This number is extracted from over 14 million tests, spread out over 41 languages. In my thinking, basically, 30–45 WPM is the average typing speed.

Question — What are some good resources for learning typing or touch typing?

Answer: My Personal Favorite is Typingclub.com for learning(fundamentals and advance both), Monkeytype.com for practice, 10fastfingers.com for typing test, Typeracer.com for competitive typing.

Question — How much time it takes to learn touch typing?

Answer: It simply depends on you if you are practicing daily for more than 40 minutes one month you can learn typing but for becoming average or fast you need to practice more. It takes me approx 5 hours to learn touch typing and my speed is 10–15 WPM and takes me more approx 30 hours of practice to get the consistent speed of 45+ WPM. Means it takes me approx 40 hours to be an average typist. But for many people who have already a good practice of fingers, it takes only 59 hours to reach 100 WPM speed. Source

Question — Is Touch Typing is the only method to increase typing?

Answer: Short answer is no but the long answer is yes Let’s explore the deep Hunt and Peak Method (which include the process of first finding the key then type) is almost give you max to max 40 To 50 WPM but remembering the key position and typing without looking at keyword matters. It doesn’t affect at all you are using how many fingers you use. The main thing you is you have muscle memory. Wolrd Fastest Typist Alive Today Sean Wrona doesn’t use touch typing they just remember the key position.

Question — Is typing really matters?

Answer: If you type below 40 WPM then you really need to improve your typing speed because typing below 40 WPM means you are a slow typist. Ya! If your profession is completely different and you type only on phone for just important tasks then it does not matter at all for you. For me, It matters because of my work.

Question — How can I measure my typing speed?

Answer: I recommend you to two websites 10fastfingers.com and typing.com for measuring your typing speed.

Question — I’m stuck at some typing speed now what I can do?

Answer: If you stuck below 100 WPM speed for a short period of time (basically in days) then it will improve don’t worry but if you stuck for a long period of time that means you don’t clear your fundamentals completely so practice more at least 1 hour a day. And if you are stuck above 100 WPM speed and you are not increasing it’s normal many typists are stuck on that in fact Sean Wrona says after crossing 100 WPM speed a one wpm improvement comes after a long time you can follow their tips for that. I recommend you to follow Sean Wrona Typing Blog.

Question — Is I switch the keyboard layout or Is the keyboard layout matter for typing speed?

Answer: I’m a fan of Sean Wrona. So let’s take his example he uses Qwerty layout not Dvorak or any other and his average speed on 10fastfinger is more than 200 wpm. So keyboard layout not matters a lot. It’s the practice(basically muscle memory) that matters. So, if you are interested in changing the keyboard layout you can. I can’t comment on this much.

Question — Is Typing daily necessary?

Answer: If you are just starting your journey, the answer is Yes. You should practice daily so your muscle memory can develop right and quickly. But if you typing for more than 6 months regularly, then you should only practice 5–20 mins is okay.

Question — Which keyboard is best?

Answer: I’m from India I like mechanical keyboard most but typing with the large force for a long time can hurt your finger so prefer a keyboard of your choice you can try some or search on google. The keyboard now I’m using is Dell kb216 (Affiliate link)

Question — Is you can make a living with typing?

Answer: Short answer is yes but the long answer is no. Because you can surely make some money by data entry or transcription job but in long-run do you want you to do that job is completely dependent on you. Mostly increase in salary is difficult and you only can make a living you can’t run your extra expenses from your typing skill. Remember, Typing is for additional skill, not your main skill.

Question — What goal I should make for myself and how much time I should give it?

Answer: For everybody, their goals are different, in my thinking you should at least have a goal of 50+ WPM because you want to count on yourself to be above average. Make a goal that is both realistic and challenging. It takes approx 40–60 hours to learn that speed. Few people can achieve this before.

Tips To Increase Your Typing Speed Fast:

• Make a goal: Try to make goals that are both realistic and challenging with a deadline. I prefer for a beginner whose speed is between 0–20 WPM to set a goal for more than 40WPM and for the intermediate who speed between 40–60WPM set a goal for more than 80WPM. And for advance, I don’t know because I didn’t achieve that level.
• Shortcuts are typist best friend: Shortcuts can increase typing speed by 5 to 10%. I am planning for a separate post for that but for now, you can search on google about shortcuts that you use on chrome and windows. Use keyword more than mouse if you want to speed more than 100 WPM.
• Be patient with progressing: In the end, you need to be patient, there are days when your typing speed wouldn’t increase even it can decrease but these days are just for sometimes and make you stronger. After keep practicing you increase your typing speed it granted.
• Make your own tip by experience and share in the response section.

Note: All the third parties links I use for this post is only for knowledge purpose not for promotional purposes.

So that’s it, this is my first story on medium if you can give me some feedback that will help me. So please do that in the response section (Comments). Thanks for reading