! How to become a great typist?

In this post we will start with what the definition of a “great typist, and then we will discuss what are the standard ways for learning typing and what alternatives exist.

 

But before diving into the details, let me introduce myself.

Hi! My name is Eugene. I have started my research on typing from the need to learn typing myself, five years ago. 

After extensive research, I’ve learnt quite a bit about typing, but most importantly I have learnt myself how to type without seeing the keyboard, with sufficient speed. 

A note: sufficient speed of typing – that is when your typing is as fast as thinking. For example, writing this blog post, I type in the “burst mode” with the speed around 50-60 words per minute, but because it takes sometime to think and formulate what I want to say takes a brief moment, the actual typing speed is a little slower.

 

 

Who is Great Typist? 

This should not surprise you, but you are a great typist! 

Let me assure you, that just because you want to be a great typist – you should consider yourself one!

But let us get a little technical here – a great typist is not the one who can type “insanely fast”. In fact, the need for super-fast typing from hearing a text – is diminishing. 

A Great Typist is the one  who can type as fast as the ideas comes to mind. 

What is important, is that the ideas are interfaced with a computer without any vocalization (“voce”  in latin, means voice). Thus, we can communicate our ideas directly into cumputer without saying a word.

 

 

Why it is important to communicate with a computer freely? 

A person, who have mastered touch-typing may type without moving the eyes away from the screen. 

Only uninterrupted attention counts.

Even when our eyes glance briskly between the skreen and the keys – the lines if thoughts is already compromised.

We may not even notice it, but research shows, that even tiny movements of our eyes, a slight change in the image that enters through our pupils – is capable of changing entire idea of what we are typing about. 

Therefore, if you ever wandered how to fix a problem of a missing attention – here is one answer: learn touch typing and your life will become much happier.

 

 

This statement may sound a little too ambitious, but in the next post you will learn where the happiness comes from and how your typing habits relate to your happiness.

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Thanks to Nick Fewings for posting his creative work on the Unsplash.com

 

What popular techniques are used for teaching great typists? 

Many of us developed “our own” way of typing. Some are better, but the others decided to attend a special course or a program.

Luckily, there are plenty of different websites and programs that are teaching typing. 

Oftentimes those programs will require you to press a certain button. And if you do what is requested – then either the car will go faster, as on the nitrotype.com, or you will get another point to your WPM, as on the www.typing.com

 

To summarise, existing algorithms require to press a certain button, and this results in a treat.

I tried this approach, but came to a conclusion, that I have no patience and to time to spend on these drills. It, simply was taking too long and all the flares and colors on the skreen – started to be boring. 

Result – IT DID NOT WORK FOR ME. I tried many approaches. But I felt like neither of those worked well.

 

There is yet  a different approach : mnemonic learning. This is when you memorize the placement of the keys. The progress here was even slower. Even when I knew where the keys are, my typing speed was no more than 8 – 10 WPM.

 

After that I realized, that it is not the knowledge of the keys or forcing myself to not see the keyboard. Thus I developed my own system, which I described below:

 

 

 

The recipe for step-by-step learning touch-typing :

Here is something that no-one told me before – a missing secret, which is easy to understand, if someone will tell you. 

 

You thought you cannot type with all your fingers because you do not know the keyboard layout. This is not true. You cannot touch type because your fingers are  trained to do such thing. You can see this for yourself. Try to press letter A with you pinkie several times. Is this comfortable to you? Can you do this as fast as you press letter “F” with your index finger?..

It is the muscle memory, that governs our movements. If you have not trained your fingers the right way – it is very unlikely that your fingers will start moving correctly.

 

Here is what you should do: 

1) Put your hands on the keyboard and with your index fingers locate little bumps on the F and the J letters.

Now freeze and look at your hands. This is what you hands should be looking like during typing. Try to minimize the distance you fingers move.

This is the finger layout that you should always use. Notice, that the letters on each finger have different colors, which also match with the keys above. The L. Ring (Left Ring Finger) should control only letters: ” WSD” for now.

Step number two:

Start practicing typing… just anything. But from time to time bring your fingers to the positions shown above.

Over time this will become your habit and without even noticing it you will start typing faster and faster. 

 

Conclusion:

You’ve just learned touch typing and that did not even take 5 minutes of your time. 

Yes, I know, you expected to become a 120 WPM typist in one session. Unfortunately I have no solution for that yet.

But now you really do know what 10-finger typing is like. And all it takes to get to the 120 WPMs – is practicing.

For practicing typing in new  and sensible way I have created the  Real Typing Program and a another step by step kit called Magic Exercise Numero Uno, which will help you mastering the skill that you’ve just learnt about.

Please live your comments below, and share the article if you have found something new for yourself in it…

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