This is certainly an interesting thread on doing touch typing practice (or as some call it – keyboarding practice).

I agree much with the mentioned points about practicing speed typing with 10 fingers. Hunt & Pack can become quick, but I doubt as quick as typing with all ten fingers. It might take some time at the beginning to learn to type with 10 fingers, but as with all things, it becomes natural and a second nature.

Today I can type 70-80 words per minute. It is a learned skill.

As for making mistakes, it is my understanding that one should try to avoid making mistakes, because if you’ll make lots of errors and you’ll need to correct them later, then this will take you much time, and what is the whole point of typing quickly?

On the other hand, some people are too much of perfectionists, and they get obsessed with paying attention to mistakes, which slows down their typing so that they can’t practice typing quickly. A balance is suggested.

Some people think it’s a big deal to learn touch typing. Actually, all you need is to learn keyboarding and typing skills once, and then to practice typing a lot. The more you practice typing, the better your words-per-minute typing speed will become.

My 2 cents…

By the way, I’m in the process of building now a site on typing practice, typing tutor software and typing speed games, and it is always exciting to find people like you expressing interesting thoughts and fueling motivation to generate more good ideas on typing practice matters.

I think, however, that an entirely new and different approach is needed to deal with the issues of grammar, the physical effects of so many repetitive motions (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome), typing errors, and overall output (productivity).

I would offer that the only way to strike at the heart of the problem is to greatly reduce the number of keystokes required to produce any level of output. More bang for each keypress.

We all are familiar with abbreviations such as ‘tv’ for ‘television’, ‘ea’ for ‘each’, or ‘USA’ for ‘United States of America’. Suppose it were possible to utilize technology to take these (and far more) keyed in abbreviations and convert them to their corresponding expanded text in your blogs or documents. In the process you will have greatly reduced the number of keystrokes required to produce a far greater level of output. Then, regardless of your current typing speed your productivity would be increased commensurately. (200 keypresses might output 450 letters of text for sake of argument) Not to mention the fact that the number of typing (spelling) errors made and requiring correction would be reduced in kind.

Thoughts?

Very very fast typers type 400+ chars per minute as far as I know, and of course there is a limit to how fast you can type based on your body possibilities.

But one thing I have found which might help you: Check the way you are sitting and especially how you hold your hands. I have found, that if I have a better angle on having my elbows above my fingers (sitting higher than my desk), I can more easily type = type faster.

I had a change of desks and was suddenly sitting ‘deeper’ = elbows below my hands, only a little bit, and noticed that it was harder to type and that I did type slower. :)

Also you might want to check different keyboards – they differ a lot in how fast you can type in there or for example how exhausting it is for you to type. hope this helps. :)

If you already type pretty much perfectly, how can you increase your typing speed? Just by ‘going at it’ faster?

And sometimes I am very fluent – but then I type more like as it sounds – with sometimes funny results. ;)

It’s not just the speed though it’s the matter of being able to carry on light conversation while typing that is the big bonus. I’m not concentrating on where is that key.

Foster, I would not have taken this subject, if I had not know from experience, that this topic does rise an aha moment. But of course, not for everyone, and I won’t argue with you, that you find this boring. :)

hehe…but another option is the Dvorak keyboard, curious to see if anyone has had luck with that.

Oh yes, and if you think you can’t train jourself to work without looking: Try this keyboard, I think you will be amazed to find how fast you can learn how to type without looking: http://www.daskeyboard.com/

;o)

I use Microsoft’s first model of Natural Keyboard – it is broken and tilted in half, so that my hands have their natural position. Since it is great, I find my hands sick and uncomfortable when typing on a regular straight keyboard.

And one tip for those who have typo problems, I guess that you know that gmail.com has a great (ajax-based) error checking system with highlighting mistakes and suggesting corrections, it’s just great. If you don’t have a MS Word or other tool to check you typos, or when you’re on the move, or just can’t use your favourite spell-checker, you can always use gmail to compose your blog entry and check for spelling errors :)

Greetings from Poland,
Have a nice day.

I’m actually not so concerned with having everything completely correct. I also don’t agree that certain media dictate different writing styles. It is possible to use many different styles in email, blogging, print – the medium itself is not the issue, it’s the audience.

There is nothing that says a ‘pro-blogger’ (i.e. one that does it for money) has to write in a particular way. Maybe for the niche of pro-blogging you have expertise in – but not all niches or styles.