How to type fast

[GopherTv]

I type 100 wpm on monkey type but I realized I don't use my pinkies, I only use them for like shift/enter and stuff not acctual letters. If I want to type faster is that holding my back, do I need to learn typing using proper finger placements to get faster?

[suedseefrucht]

10 minutes ago, GopherTv said:

If I want to type faster is that holding my back, do I need to learn typing using proper finger placements to get faster?

Physicall, maybe. Because your fingers are lighter and faster than your hand.
But psychologically, I write faster using monkey muscle memory than if I think about, which finger I should use.
So with a lot of training, you could get the last 1% speed out of it.
Personally, I write 55 wpm and I'm happy with it

[DoctorNick]

12 minutes ago, GopherTv said:

I type 100 wpm on monkey type but I realized I don't use my pinkies, I only use them for like shift/enter and stuff not acctual letters. If I want to type faster is that holding my back, do I need to learn typing using proper finger placements to get faster?

 

Yes  I dont type like this either. I type in a weird way, because I started using pc's as a child and never practiced proper typing

[cacoe]

I can do well on these tests but my brain is too slow to figure out what I want to type when I'm actually forming a sentence lol 

 

I think it just comes down to practice, obviously more fingers could help, less movement = time saved but if your not used to doing that naturally, it's going to take some time to adjust and you'll likely be much slower for a period of time while you try to force yourself to not go back to your natural method of typing.

 

BTW, 100wpm is already pretty good, more is always better but I don't think you're going to be at a massive disadvantage in most situations at that. (other than bragging rights) 

[Tom09]

I think that you should use your pinkies if you want to get a lot faster at typing. But if you find it comfortable and you can get the speed you want then I wouldn't stress about it about it

[Trinopoty]

Unless it's your job to write or transcribe content, I'd say 100 wpm is pretty good. The effort vs improvement after this stage is almost negligible.

[Latvian Video]

13 minutes ago, suedseefrucht said:

Physicall, maybe. Because your fingers are lighter and faster than your hand.
But psychologically, I write faster using monkey muscle memory than if I think about, which finger I should use.
So with a lot of training, you could get the last 1% speed out of it.
Personally, I write 55 wpm and I'm happy with it

I type at about 60 wpm, but that is in typeracer, when making sentences, my mind cant keep up or smth, so I am a little bit slower

[Chris Pratt]

Yeah, I never really invested the time to learn to type correctly. In order to get the best speeds, you pretty much need to position on the home row and use all your fingers without really moving your hands. It's a little like learning to play piano, in that you really have to build up the muscles and dexterity in your fingers.

 

I've just been typing so long that I basically have all the key positions memorized, so my hands move all over the keyboard, but I can still crank out 80 WPM or so. I get totally screwed up whenever there's a non traditional layout, though, like when they move the keys around or change the sizes of certain keys.

[Alan G]

We had to take typing in school (early 1960s) on manual typewriters.  We were graded for both speed and accuracy and of course this was in the day when you could not correct errors so precision was rewarded.  The only reliable way to improve skills is repetition.

[Avocado Diaboli]

Honestly, fast typing isn't that useful when you try to express something while you're writing it. Even just typing this post, I've rewritten parts of the sentences at least once or twice to express what I'm trying to say. I just did a test on monkeytype and did 122 wpm (and I'm using a QWERTZ keyboard with a Swiss layout). But writing this post was nowhere near that speed, because I'm not just blindly typing what's in front of me.

 

The way I learned fast and more importantly, accurate typing was during my apprenticeship in business administration. The way it was taught to us was with an ancient piece of software that had individual lessons for every finger, so when you were for example training pinky fingers, you were just required to type the letters you should use that finger for over and over again at faster and faster intervals. It's a bit like learning how to play an instrument. While that part was ok, we also had to conform to then-current ergonomic guidelines such as sitting at perfect 90° angles and it even went so far that the edge of the keyboard had to be aligned with the edge of the desk so your hands were floating in the air and not perched on the desk itself. I obviously no longer adhere to those guidelines. 

[Roswell]

I never use my pinkies for actual letters, just shift, delete, enter, etc. Somehow I still get around 105 WPM.

[GopherTv]

Thanks for all the responces

[yolosnail]

With those online typing tests I usually average around 90wpm, but I'm usually held back by my reading speed as opposed to my typing speed. 

 

I also find it really difficult to type when I'm looking at what I'm typing. If I'm watching what I'm typing I tend to make loads of mistakes and then get confused when I try to correct them, sometimes even correcting mistakes I haven't even made!

 

But if I just close my eyes and type, I find that I can usually type faster and more accurately. 

 

For work, I often have to transcribe 1-2 hour long focus group recordings, so I just close my eyes and type. I usually find that (depending on the accent of the focus group attendees) I can almost type in real time, but I usually slow it down to around 80% just to give me a bit more thinking time

[SimplyChunk]

1 hour ago, yolosnail said:

With those online typing tests I usually average around 90wpm, but I'm usually held back by my reading speed as opposed to my typing speed. 

 

I also find it really difficult to type when I'm looking at what I'm typing. If I'm watching what I'm typing I tend to make loads of mistakes and then get confused when I try to correct them, sometimes even correcting mistakes I haven't even made!

 

But if I just close my eyes and type, I find that I can usually type faster and more accurately. 

 

For work, I often have to transcribe 1-2 hour long focus group recordings, so I just close my eyes and type. I usually find that (depending on the accent of the focus group attendees) I can almost type in real time, but I usually slow it down to around 80% just to give me a bit more thinking time

That's because you're like me.  You type from the heart.  Not from the head

[RoseLuck462]

Practice