For the past few weeks, I embarked on a mission to Learn Touch Typing, often called “10-finger typing”. This method is widely recognized as the gold standard for efficient typing, promising both speed and reduced strain on wrists and hands. Considering how much of my work and personal time is spent interacting with a keyboard, my primary interface to the digital world, the question arose: why not optimize this fundamental skill?
I was genuinely surprised to discover that many of my colleagues had acquired touch typing skills in their school years and have been reaping the benefits for decades. In contrast, I had developed my own idiosyncratic typing style, a habit I’d unconsciously cultivated and adhered to ever since. Initially skeptical about retraining my muscle memory in a reasonable timeframe, I strategically chose to begin this learning journey just before my summer vacation, granting myself a two-week, work-free trial period to fully immerse myself in the process.
My Self-Taught Typing Method: An “8-Finger” Approach
German ISO keyboard layout
Keyboard layouts themselves are a deep dive, a rabbit hole I wisely avoided while focusing on the core mechanics of effective typing. More on that later. My personal typing style was entirely self-taught – or rather, “developed” is a more accurate description. It started with the basic “hunt and peck” method and evolved from there. Consequently, my default finger positions rested on asd and klö on the German ISO layout I always used. I did incorporate the Shift key usage of touch typing, resting my little fingers on them. So, my method could be termed “8-finger typing,” characterized by three key deviations from standard touch typing:
- Inefficient Hand Movements: I frequently made unnecessary hand travels and cross-hand motions, actions that would be particularly problematic on a split keyboard. For instance, typing ‘z’ with my left hand and awkwardly typing ‘~’ by pressing ‘n’ with my left hand and ‘Option’ with my right.
- One-Handed Special Characters: I typed most special characters using just one hand, often relying on my right pinky finger for
Shiftor my thumb forOption. For example, ‘/’ was a one-handed stretch from ‘7’ toShift, and similar stretches were used for characters like ‘=’, ‘?`, etc. - Frequent Keyboard Peeking: I consistently looked at the number row while typing numbers and generally glanced at the keyboard quite often.
Beyond these major points, there were subtler inconsistencies, and I even noticed variations in how I typed the same characters within a single session. While I was comfortable and achieved reasonable speed with this method, I felt I had hit a plateau and further improvement seemed unattainable.
Establishing a Baseline Typing Speed
Embarking on learning a new typing method only makes sense if it can at least match, and ideally surpass, my existing typing speed. To gauge my starting point, I conducted a baseline test using MonkeyType, a website I highly recommend. It’s an engaging platform with excellent UX and insightful progress analysis tools. This baseline would serve as a benchmark against which to measure future improvements. Key metrics to consider are:
- WPM (Words Per Minute): Total characters in correctly typed words, divided by 5.
- Raw WPM: Similar to WPM, but includes all characters, even incorrect ones.
- Accuracy (ACC): Percentage of correctly pressed keys.
- Consistency: Variance in raw WPM across tests.
Baseline typing speed test setup on MonkeyType.com
To ensure realistic benchmarks, I used the German vocabulary setting (to incorporate the tricky umlauts) and included punctuation and numbers in my tests. I performed 10 tests, each lasting 60 seconds, on an Apple Magic Keyboard. The results averaged at 76.98 WPM, 80.98 raw WPM, 94.5% accuracy, and 71.96% consistency.
Baseline typing speed progress chart on MonkeyType.com
Practice Regimen and Key Learnings
With my baseline established, I began exploring free online resources to learn touch typing properly. I initially started with Tipp10, but soon realized its curriculum felt somewhat lacking. Nevertheless, it proved valuable during my practice sessions, and I revisited it later.
My primary learning tool became TypingClub. Among the various platforms I tested, TypingClub offered the most engaging and structured lesson plan. Over two months, I diligently worked through all its lessons. The only minor drawback was that it exhibited some quirks with German keyboard layouts in the initial stages. However, I still consider it about 90% ideal for learning touch typing. It visually guides correct finger placements, starts by introducing each letter individually, and progressively builds up to continuous typing and speed development.
Practicing touch typing at https://www.edclub.com/sportal/
Lesson overview at https://www.edclub.com/sportal/
It took me just over a week to consciously unlearn my previous, custom typing habits. The first few days were particularly disorienting, reinforcing the wisdom of starting this process during my vacation. I dedicated about 30 minutes daily to systematic practice with TypingClub and also committed to using touch typing for all my other typing tasks, albeit slowly and with initial frustration.
While TypingClub was instrumental in the initial weeks, I returned to Tipp10 for its custom lesson feature and the ability to save them. For example, I utilized ChatGPT to generate text heavily featuring the letter ‘z’ to specifically practice typing it with my right hand instead of my ingrained left-hand habit. I also created lessons alternating between 5-digit numbers and German words to practice transitioning between the home row and the number row. Overcoming the urge to look at the number row was by far the most challenging aspect for me, and these custom lessons allowed focused practice in that area. This challenge likely varies from person to person, and custom lessons can effectively address such individual needs. Here are the custom texts I created.
After approximately two weeks of practice, I felt comfortable enough to fully switch to touch typing at work. The temptation to discontinue formal lessons was strong, but I quickly realized I was beginning to develop new, incorrect habits. The same principle applies to engaging in “fun” training like Typeracer. Resist the urge to compromise accuracy too early in the learning process. On MonkeyType, I also activated “Max Confidence Mode,” which encourages prioritizing 100% accuracy over speed and minimizes backspacing errors. While the saying “practice makes perfect” is common, I believe it only holds true if you practice with correct technique and accuracy, especially before trying to increase speed.
Furthermore, while relative benchmarks are useful for tracking progress within your lessons, don’t fixate on absolute typing speed. It’s not the primary objective, and speed metrics can be heavily influenced by test settings. You’ll find that the true advantage of touch typing isn’t just speed, but the improved ability to concentrate on the content of your writing, rather than the mechanical act of typing itself.
Later in my journey, I discovered Keybr. It also offers well-structured lessons and a visual keyboard displaying correct finger positions, but I feel it might be less ideal for absolute beginners learning touch typing from scratch. However, a unique strength of Keybr is its extensive collection of alternative keyboard layouts, including German ISO, various US layouts, Dvorak, Halmak, and many more. If exploring different layouts intrigues you, Keybr is worth investigating. Otherwise, you’ll find it shares many features with MonkeyType.
Re-evaluation After Two Months
I’ve been re-testing my typing speed with MonkeyType every two weeks. As of this writing, it’s precisely two months since my initial baseline test. In total, I’ve invested about 10 hours practicing on TypingClub, and 3 hours each on Keybr, Tipp10, and MonkeyType. This sums to 19 hours over 61 days, averaging roughly 20 minutes of structured practice per day, with a greater concentration in the first 2-3 weeks.
Re-test typing speed results on MonkeyType.com after two months of practice
Currently, my average scores are 72 WPM (-5 WPM from baseline), 80 raw WPM (-1 WPM), 93% accuracy (-1.5%), and 68% consistency (-4%). As you can see in the figure, I’m gradually approaching my previous typing speed and anticipate surpassing it in the coming weeks. For context, a month prior, my scores were 67 WPM, 88% accuracy, and 63% consistency. While I’m still slightly slower than my original typing speed, I am confident that with continued, focused practice, my speed will continue to improve. But again, these metrics primarily serve to track progress. The practical ability to effectively use my new touch typing technique daily at work emerged much earlier in the process.
Conclusion: Embrace the Journey of Learning Touch Typing
Overall, I am pleasantly surprised by the remarkable adaptability of muscle memory. It took only about two months of moderate, consistent effort to transition to a completely different typing style. Once I overcame the initial learning curve, I quickly noticed tangible improvements. And once you’ve identified the right learning tools for your journey, practicing becomes almost habitual, even enjoyable. These typing exercises can be surprisingly meditative. With touch typing proficiency, I find myself more deeply engaged with the content I’m writing, rather than being preoccupied with the mechanics of typing. Investing time and effort in refining typing as a skill is undoubtedly worthwhile, especially considering it’s the primary input method for software developers and other knowledge workers. Does this newfound enthusiasm mean I’ll be exploring Dvorak or US layouts next? Absolutely not…
…at least not immediately.
Oh, and a word of caution: be aware of the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole that lurks around every corner of this journey.
Published by…
Basti Tee
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