How To Improve Your Typing Skills

The ability to type quickly and accurately is a severely underrated skill. Typing is something nearly all of us do each day, whether it’s when we’re writing a report at work or school, or simply when we’re texting our friends and family.

Throughout each professional’s lifetime, they’re likely to type out millions, if not tens of millions of words. Just think of how much time you could save throughout your career by devoting some time to improving your typing skills.

That saved time translates to a performance boost at work, as well as more time to spend on other activities. You’re also investing in a skill that’s transferable between many modern-day jobs.

In this article, we’ll discuss the best ways to enhance your typing accuracy and speed. We’ll also provide you with basic exercises as well as more advanced ones, so you can be sure to find one that matches your proficiency.

Tips for Improving Your Typing Speed and Accuracy

Here are some methods and tips for improving your:

• Typing accuracy. The methods for improving your typing speed and accuracy differ greatly, making it best to just focus on perfecting one at a time.

  When practicing your typing accuracy, make sure to:

  • Slow down. The key to eliminating typing mistakes is to slowly and steadily build muscle memory and positive habits.

    Make sure to be deliberate and mindful when practicing so that you can catch mistakes quickly and fix them.

    If you’re sloppy when practicing your typing accuracy, you’ll never improve no matter how long or hard you drill. Your mistakes will just compound into even worse habits.

  • Keep your eyes off the keys. For many people, typing without looking at the fingers can be tough to break.

    Ideally, you want to build up sufficient muscle memory so that your fingers can type accurately without effort or thought, a practice commonly called touch-typing.

    If you rely on your eyes, however, they’ll become a crutch that impedes meaningful improvement.

• Typing speed. Increasing your typing speed is much easier than improving your typing accuracy.

  It’s much more about the raw volume of practice you do, rather than how deliberate and mindful you are during the process.

  Make sure to:

  • Practice by copying different blocks of text. A great way to improve your typing speed is to quickly copy medium to large blocks of text.

    However, make sure that you swap between new pieces of text rather than using the same one.

    Otherwise, you’ll be relying on your memory rather than building up the ability to process and transcribe text with your eyes and fingers.

  • Scan ahead. Scan the text a word or two ahead while you’re typing the current one.

    This allows you to prepare your fingers to instantly move to the next key when you’re finished with a word.

There are also more general methods to improve both the speed and accuracy of your typing abilities:

• Limit your finger movements. Try to limit your finger movements to only what’s required to hit the right key. It’ll increase your typing speed, as well as protect the health of your hands over decades of typing.

  A great way to minimize how much your fingers need to move is to always start and resume from the middle of your keyboard, specifically by placing your left and right fingers on the “ASDF and JKL;” keys, respectively.

• Delegate each half of the keyboard to one hand. Many new typers will criss-cross their hands at random when reaching for keys. These unnecessary movements are extremely inefficient and will waste your time.

  Instead, make sure that your left hand is exclusively handling the left side of the keyboard and your right hand, the right.

• Take periodic breaks. If you start making many mistakes or become distracted, don’t be afraid to take a break.

• Pay attention to your sitting posture. Sitting in the right posture isn’t just critical for your health; it also influences your typing abilities more than you might think.

  Many sit in positions that place stress on their arms or tendons. This forces them to adapt through unconscious, awkward movements that turn into negative habits.

  When sitting, make sure to:

  1. Sit up and keep your back straight.

  2. Make sure your elbows are bent at a 90-degree angle.

  3. Adjust your chair or table so that your wrists are level with the surface.

  4. Adjust your chair or table so that your face is level with the screen.

  5. Sit between 30-70 centimeters away from the computer screen.

  If you work from home or in an office that allows you to bring your items, you should also research what chairs and equipment you could purchase to make sure that your workstation is as ergonomic as possible.

• Visualize where the keys are. Once you’re intuitively able to know where each key is located on the keyboard, you’ll be able to type extremely efficiently without ever needing to look down.

• Use your thumb to strike the space bar.

• Use your ring or pinky finger to hit the shift-key.

• Maintain a rhythm. Try to adopt a rhythm when you’re typing, with equal intervals between each keypress. This helps you become more consistent and reduce typos.

• Follow these tips even when you aren’t “practicing.” No matter how many typing exercises you do at home, it’ll pale in comparison to the volume of typing you do at work or school.

  If you don’t maintain your new habits at all times, you’ll just revert to the old ones.

• Consider when you need a keyboard replacement. Some people adopt inefficient typing habits because their keyboard is broken or unreliable, forcing them to slow down or press keys extra hard.

  We’re not telling you to buy a fancy, expensive keyboard you don’t need — just something that works.

  The amount of time and money you’ll save by typing efficiently over the long term will be well worth the price.

Beginner Exercises to Improve Your Typing Accuracy

Here are some simple beginner exercises to start the process of improving your typing accuracy:

• The Practice Test Misspelled Words Drill. This typing accuracy drill gives you a long list of words and prompts you to copy them as precisely as possible.

  It’s an effective drill because it specifically targets the most commonly mistyped words. It also leaves you full sentences and surrounding context, forcing you to concentrate on the words themselves rather than unconsciously relying on clues.

  Additionally, you’re graded solely on typing accuracy rather than typing speed.

  It’s very important to keep yourself from rushing this test so that you can build up the right habits. Just take your time and be deliberate in your keystrokes.

• Typing.com Accuracy Drills. This accuracy drill provides you with full sentences to transcribe, rather than just lists of words.

  It automatically highlights each letter as you type, helping you develop a steady rhythm while typing.

  The typing test also displays a digital keyboard that indicates the next key to press. If you find it difficult to stop looking at your hands while you type, this visual will serve as a useful temporary transitioning tool.

  It’s also graded based on accuracy, not speed, so staying mindful is important to prevent mistakes.

Beginner Tests to Improve Your Typing Speed

Some great beginner tests for improving your typing speed are:

• Typing Test Customizable Speed Test. This test lets you customize the length of the drill and the difficulty of the text, making it an effective exercise no matter your current level of proficiency.

  The test also calculates your words per minute (wpm), making it a quick and easy tool to periodically check how much you’ve improved.

• KeyHero Free Typing Speed Test. In case you want to check your speed and accuracy at the same time, this test will calculate both.

  It also maintains a history of your previous attempts, allowing you to benchmark your progress.

Advanced Exercises to Improve Your Typing Skills

Here are some exercises for individuals who are already fairly proficient typer but wish to further increase their skills:

• TypingAcademy Typing Tutor. This free resource provides several customizable tools to take your typing skills to the next level.

  It provides you with a digital keyboard that displays whenever you’ve made a typo, allowing you to quickly fix the issue.

  The site also provides you with in-depth statistics that not only track the speed and accuracy of your test results over time but also tell you exactly what types of errors you tend to make.

  There are over 50 different types of lessons and exercises that help you perfect any aspect of your typing skills that you’re lacking in.

• TopTyper Text Generator Test. This test features a unique tool that allows you to use text from any URL of your choosing.

  Simply enter a web address and the tool will generate random text from the page for you to copy. After you finish, you’ll see your accuracy and speed.

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.