I have been trying to get my WPM (words per minute) to 100+ since a year now. I started with 35 WPM and now I have hit 101 WPM on average.
Factors
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Posture: I think it’s probably the most important thing to keep in mind, can get 15% more WPM with a correct posture which doesn’t sound a lot to be honest but its more than any other thing on the list. Correct posture means having a straight back with your arms at 90-100 degree angle and your arms should be rested on something rather than your hands being on the keyword and your arms handing from the edge of a table.
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Keyboard: Keywords affect your typing speed as well which you might have noticed already that on some keywords, it’s just easier to type, however some just suck. It really depends on what you like or feel comfortable on.
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Having the basics: In my opinion, having the basics right i.e. learning how to touch type, being accurate with typing while not looking at the keyword & having a good control of your hands goes a long way to increasing your typing speed.
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Breaks: Make sure that you leave enough breaks in between. For example, I used to practice one month every day with 15 days with no practice; it just gives enough break because practicing continuously doesn’t yield the best results and overtime you will feel de-motivated. You - don’t really have to follow by 30-15 day routine; find whatever works for you and what you are comfortable with. Forcing will just make it much more worse to learn.
Motivation
Typing quick is quite helpful as well. I used to create a guide from scratch in around 30-40 minutes which is now just 10-15 minutes, which is surprising since 30-40 minutes was quicker than most people. In this time, I did many assignments, article and started my own newsletter and all of these things required tons of typing and review.
Another thing which helped me was coding, it doesn’t really help directly because you have to stop every 1-2 minutes because thats how coding is. However, just the will to type faster and accurately made me learn a bit more efficiently & participating in things like 100DaysOfCode & creating significant amount or Pull Request on other GitHub projects.
Links
Here are some videos & websites I used to help with the learning and practicing.
- Ali Abdaal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmQt-QM0mbQ
- Monkey Type: https://monkeytype.com/
- Touch Typing: https://www.typing.com/en-gb/student/lessons
- When I first hit 100 WPM: Icks and Observations
That’s it <3