Start a blog or novel that makes typing both interesting and engaging. Don’t try to improve your typing speed by typing out some lame sentence over and over again. It’s a very “in the moment” test of typing speed. There’s little thought required and, unlike in a traditional typing test, your thoughts aren’t jumping ahead to the words you have to write in the future (because you don’t know what they are). I found this to be the best typing test available. Back in high school, we’d occasionally be in the library where our teacher would dictate information we had to type into a Word document. I’m certainly no speed reader, but I’m not slow either, yet it still takes me a second to “process” the sentences I read in a typing test, and then I have to regurgitate them on the keyboard. Tests that determine your typing speed have a major flaw: they require you to read.

Have something clear in your mind that you want to type before trying to clear 100+ words per minute. It’s my brain that’s moving slowly, not my fingers. The only times I type slowly are when I’m trying to tackle writer’s block. Sure, the most “pure” type of practice will be with a computer keyboard, but playing the piano will less likely induce boredom. I was never particularly brilliant at it, but the skills required are similar to that of typing on a computer keyboard: speed, accuracy and finding the location of keys. One of the first instruments I learned to play was the piano. This means you’re forced to memorise the location of keys. It claims to be the best keyboard for typing, which is obviously debatable, but the cool thing is, the keys aren’t labelled. Whilst it’s not available as a DVORAK keyboard, this is still a pretty nice looking piece of hardware. Some people claim making the switch doesn’t make a huge difference, but at the very least your fingers will be moving less and therefore less likely to strain. DVORAK is meant to be the fastest keyboard layout to use and if you’re serious about typing fast you should definitely look into it. Like most people I use the QWERTY keyboard setup, but this setup is actually designed to slow down typing (it goes back to the days of typewriters). Repeat this exercise until you can identify every key by touch. Close your eyes and try to type out your full name. If you can’t feel the location of keys whilst typing slowly then you won’t be able to type fast. I came across a great post by David Turnbull with his 9 tips for How to Type 100+ Words Per Minute. We love that Das Keyboard has helped so many people to improve the speed and accuracy of their typing skills and we’re always looking for ways to help more. As you can imagine, one of our passions here at Das Keyboard is for really fast typing.

100 wpm typing test