How I got faster at typing

For an embarrassingly long time I typed like most people: two fingers that knew roughly where things were, and eyes that checked anyway. It worked. It also capped out, and no amount of "just type more" moved it.

Turns out typing speed isn't talent. It's two separate skills: knowing where every key is without looking, then making that fast. Most people try to learn both at once and stall at hunt-and-peck speed for years. Bro, I was most people. So I split them: keybr.com for the first, monkeytype for the second.

Where each finger lives

Touch typing gives every finger a column of keys and a home key to come back to: ASDF for the left hand, JKL; for the right, and both thumbs on space. Those little bumps on F and J aren't a manufacturing defect. They're there so you can find home without looking down, which is the whole game.

A few rules nobody tells you until you've already built the wrong habit:

• Index fingers own two columns each. The left one covers R T F G V B, the right one Y U H J N M. They do the most work and get no thanks.
• Shift with the opposite hand. A capital A is right pinky on Shift, left pinky on A. Never two keys with one hand, however tempting.
• Always go home. After every key the finger returns to the home row. That's what makes the next key findable blind.

Step 1: keybr until you've got it

keybr starts you on a handful of letters and only adds the next one once you're fast and accurate on the current set. Every word it gives you is made of keys you've already learned, so there's nothing to look down for. It's slow and a little boring, and that's the point: you're building the map, not the speed. Patience, but make it a curriculum.

• Don't look at the keyboard. Ever. Cover your hands if you have to.
• Accuracy first. A slow correct key teaches your finger the path; a fast wrong one teaches it the wrong path, very efficiently.
• Stop once every letter is unlocked and you no longer think about where keys are. That's the signal to move on.

Step 2: put the time in on monkeytype

Once the map lives in your fingers, speed is just repetition. Monkeytype is quick to start, has short timed tests and shows your progress, which makes it dangerously easy to do "one more" whenever you have a minute. There's no trick here. It's hours.

That's from 1,558 tests and about 16 hours of typing. So yes, I've spent the better part of a day doing nothing but typing random words. Look at how the speed drops on longer tests: a 15 second burst is easy to hold, a full minute isn't. Stamina is its own skill, and the 60 second test is where I'm working now. Humbling, allegedly character building.

Try it

A 15 second test, from the same common-word pool monkeytype uses. The marker is my best. Feel free to beat it, I'll pretend not to mind.

That's genuinely it. No secret drill, no mechanical keyboard required, although I won't stop you from buying one.