How I Doubled My Typing Speed in Four Months

At the very beginning of 2021, I decided to reteach myself how to properly type. I had just graduated college in December 2020 and was in need of a project to work towards while sorting out my life plans. I was motivated to eventually hold a position as a medical scribe, but I was utterly unable to type without looking at the keyboard for every single stroke. In all honesty, I had never formally learned how to type. I was loosely introduced to the fundamentals of typing while in third grade and in middle school, but I found the self-guided nature of these programs to be too challenging for someone who had no desire to learn the motor skill. 

My keyboarding journey started on a fittingingly named website called Typing.com, a free platform used by schools and self-advocating typists alike. The program starts at a slow pace and provides video guides as well as interactive games to teach the proper finger placements. A strong emphasis is placed on mastering the motor skills before progressing towards speed practice, and I found this strategy to be quite helpful. After close to two months, I had learned all of the letter keys on a keyboard. However, my speed was abysmal — I was typing around 15-20 words per minute (WPM) and nowhere near the 60+ WPM speeds desired by a medical scribe job.

I took a three month break from structured typing practice, as I had been hired as a lab assistant and was typing at work daily. Once a coworker shared that she too was practicing her typing, I was reinvigorated by the thought of having wickedly accurate and fast typing skills. She referred me to the website Monkeytype for its emphasis on repetition and customization, even down to the choice of background color.

  I began by utilizing Monkeytype’s boilerplate options of common short-length English words and focused on my finger dexterity and speed. This was about the time that the spacebar on my Macbook broke, so I decided to purchase a Logitech wireless keyboard, whose raised keys I preferred more than the shallow keys of Macintoshes. My speed averaged at 30 WPM, but after four months of consistent practice, I am now consistently typing at 60+ WPM. Monkeytype continues to motivate my practice with intricate line graphs that show my progression over time.

In November 2021 I was able to land a job as a medical scribe for an orthopedic surgeon and continue practicing my typing daily. That is not to say that I have mastered this skill though, as I have only been typing without looking at the keyboard for less than a year. I am still progressing towards being a more accurate and speed-oriented typist every day. 

My typing journey has taught me that learning to type is not exclusive to any time frame, and there is no shame in starting now. Additionally, I have figured out that in the long run, I am maximizing my efficiency by typing correctly. For any scribe, medical assistant or scientist like the old me who still requires slight guidance around a keyboard: This is your sign to sharpen your motor skills and optimize your commodity of time.