My journey on SPEED

Speed typing is one of my favorite pastimes. It consists of typing out the displayed prompt as fast as you can while making sure you minimize your mistakes because otherwise, you’ll have to go back to correct them before the program lets you continue. Typing speed is calculated through WPM or words per minute where each word is approximated to be around five or six characters. I feel like some strategies I’ve gained from practicing speed typing can also be applied to other aspects of life as well. 

I’ll give you some context first. I first started to get a sense of typing back when I was in elementary school. Back when I first started, I was still struggling to type without looking at the keys and was using only my two index fingers, my WPM was probably around 20. 

It took me about a year to be able to type most things without looking down at the keyboard. Just this change brought up my WPM to about 70 when I was in seventh grade which was my mom’s record too when I had her try it out. The idea is that you should always maximize your resources, be resourceful. Think about what you can use to help you instead of just going in blindly through trial and error. 

The next big breakthrough was in 9th grade, this is around the time when I first passed 100 WPM. The idea is that instead of typing each word letter by letter, you should type them in short bursts of several characters at once. Especially, since certain phrases are very common such as prefixes and suffixes like pre-, dis-, uni-, re-, -tion, -ity, -ment, -ness. By familiarizing yourself with common occurrences and practicing how to deal with them quickly and effectively is key to becoming better, not just in typing, but also in whatever you do.

Another idea is that typing fast doesn’t just come down to how fast your fingers move, but also your accuracy. I’ve noticed that when I try to focus exclusively on speed, my accuracy tends to falter which leads to, ironically, even slower finishing times. Keeping this in mind has helped me maintain composure when under time pressure which has helped me many times outside of typing as well. This is also what helped me break the wall of 110 WPM. 

A recent breakthrough that I’ve noticed came from reading ahead. When you’re typing and you’re about to finish a line, you already need to be reading ahead to the next three words so that your fingers don’t stop typing while your brain is trying to process the next words. This is much easier said than done since you need to train yourself to type the words a couple of hundred milliseconds after you read them instead of instantly which actually helps your speed. The lesson we can take away from this is to always think a couple steps ahead since your immediate reaction won’t be nearly as fast or good as a planned one. Applying this strategy is what boosted my speed even higher which makes my record a whopping 148 WPM.

Of course, the higher you get, the harder it’ll be to improve. Although my record is in the 140s, my typical average speed is probably around 105 WPM. However, the key is to never stop improving since consistent practice is always necessary and the improvements are there even if they’re not noticeable in the short term.