On learning to touch type
This post can be read on my substack also.
Can you touch type?
I suggest the following websites for learning (which I had used personally)
- Typing club for small video lessons followed by short exercises to learn the theory. You can follow this till Basic Level 2 or so.. or till whereever you wish.
- typingbolt.com for personalized practice. It has short samples, teaches proper finger positioning visually. The sentences progressively keep getting harder as you type. Keybr.com is also good for similar practice.
How I did things initially
It was Summer 2019. I practiced touch typing on typing club followed by typing bolt for around 30 minutes - 1hour for roughly 10 days continously. I would try my best to not look at the keyboard follow the proper finger positioning (Home Row etc). Use the F and J bumps. Ensure which finger should go to which key from F and J. (All these nuances are taught by the typing club website).
It was pretty hard to break my existing muscle memory. My speed had dropped to 20 wpm. My hands would sometimes tremble after practice, I felt fatigued after practice sessions. This was normal since I was doing deliberate practice.
I would try to stretch myself each day to attain higher speeds (usually towards end of sessions). This did affect my productivity for those days but I can say it was totally worth it since once you learn touch typing properly, the speed just keeps increasing. Overtime, your thinking becomes the bottleneck.
Things to keep in mind
Focus on learning proper positioning and typing without seeing the keyboard first.
If you can do it slowly, then you can do it quickly
Focus on accuracy and finger positioning. Do not worry much about speed. Although you might very soon notice your speed go up (when your brain has sort of internalised the new mapping). Outside practice sessions, again try to type with proper finger positioning.
Useful tips
After you feel comfortable with positioning, you can try tests on monkeytype or 10fastfingers to see how fast you can type with proper positioning. (You don’t want to revert back to old muscle memory).
Get better at the top 200 words in 10fastfingers. Then try 1000 words (because your fingers get accustomed with top 200)
After every few tests, give your fingers a break. The mind rehearses the same practice at a faster pace when you take short intermittent breaks (source: Huberman) for activities like piano, keyboard etc.
Practice with music to reduce subvocalization. (I did this sometimes to relax, I would not push myself unless felt like in such sessions)
Participate in competitions on 10fastfingers and races on typingracer here and there outside your general practice sessions
Additional websites
Some folks like keybr.com as it targets individual fingers and provides lots of options. Surely worth exploring once.