You spend hours every day working with one, but still you don’t know how to use it properly.  Look at you, pecking away like a demented emu.  Enough is enough.  It’s time you learned how to touch type.

Excuse #1: I haven’t got time

You already waste time every day hunting for the right keys.  Redirect those minutes into teaching yourself to touch type. The long term pay off is more than worth it.  Imagine being able to quickly belt out a letter, conveying complex clinical information, twice as fast as you can write it.

One estimate I found suggested that it took about 15 hours to learn to touch type at writing speed. That sounds too low to me – let’s double it. 30 hours.

If you blocked out 15 minutes each week day just for touch typing, you’d be up to speed in 6 months. Some of you will do it faster than that, some of you will struggle. But imagine, by the end of this year, being able to call yourself a touch typist.

Excuse #2: I can already type

When you can type:

• faster than writing speed (about 30 WPM)
• without looking at the keyboard
• without looking at the screen

…then you can call yourself a touch typist. Until then, you’re faking it.

Where to start

There’s loads of free typing tutors and typing games on the web.  To save you time, I tried a few out.

Even though I can already touch type (chicks dig a guy with skills), Peter’s Online Typing Course seems like a good place to start.  It starts right at the very beginning – good for those of you who haven’t a clue.

Once you get better, you’ll want to try a few speed tests like typingtest.com.

And for sheer fun, it’s hard to beat www.onlytypinggames.com.  Resist the urge to try these without knowing basic finger position though – you’ll need to able to play without looking at the keyboard for help.

Tags: computing