How typing faster can save you a ton of time [#3]

Hey! Thanks for reading this piece. In this article, I’ll cover:

1. How learning to type faster can save you one full week per year
2. A step-by-step process outlining how you (yes, YOU) can dramatically improve your typing speed
3. The best keyboard shortcuts to improve your productivity further

Great, now that we’ve got that out of the way…

My Personal Experience with Typing

In April 2022, I typed at a measly 45 WPM (words per minute) and spent about 1 hr/day typing. I was mostly texting my friends and writing papers for my English class.

Fast forward to now: in December 2022, I type at a blistering 90 WPM.

I doubled my typing speed.

Let’s do some quick math (it’s easy to understand, I promise):

Since I doubled my typing speed, typing that used to take me 60 min (1 hr) now only takes me 30 min. So I’m saving 30 min/day. And 30 min/day = 10950 min/year = 182.5 hrs/year = ~7.6 days/year.

Let me reiterate that previous figure: by doubling my typing speed, I effectively saved myself 30 min/day, or one full week per year. So if you also type for 1+ hrs/day and double your typing speed, you can also save one full week per year!!

What could you do with all that extra time? Here’s some inspiration:

• You could watch all eight Harry Potter movies nine times. (source)
• From Times Square, NYC, you could walk all the way to the White House in Washington, DC and back. (source)
• You could read twenty-two 300-page novels (assuming you read at a normal speed). (source)

That is a ridiculous amount of time saved. How will you spend that time?

How You Can Type Way Faster

You may be wondering:

“Nathan, that’s great, but there has to be a catch. How long did it take you to double your typing speed? And that must have been really hard.”

Except... it wasn’t. Doubling my typing speed took me almost no time at all in comparison to how much time I’m now saving. In fact, it only took me 15-20 hours. This seems crazy — but I promise it's true.

So here’s what you’ve been waiting for: a comprehensive guide outlining how you can meaningfully achieve large increases in your typing speed.

The Seven-Step Guide

1. Head over to 10fastfingers.com and take three initial one-minute tests. Find the average WPM of those tests. This will be your starting point.
2. Now, head over to keybr.com, create a (free) account, and start practicing. Make sure that you are using the home row when you type.
3. Spend 10 minutes on keybr.com every day for the next month, without fail. Step 3 is 100% the hardest part, and it’s where most people fail. Don’t be like most people.
4. Did you complete step 3? Great! You’ve spent 300 focused minutes, or 5 focused hours devoted to improving your typing speed. Go to step 5!
5. At the end of the month, take another three tests on 10fastfingers.com, and take the average WPM of those tests.
6. If you’ve reached your WPM goal, congrats! Throw a celebration for yourself, complete with cake and party balloons.
7. If you haven’t reached your goal, return to step 3.

Bonus: Top Keyboard Shortcuts to Further Improve Your Productivity

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. Here are some of my favorites (for MacOS):

1. ⌘ + shift + 5 allows you to easily take screenshots and quickly start screen recordings.
2. ⌘ + L (in most browsers) launches you into the search bar so you don't have to use your mouse.
3. ⌘ + shift + T opens your most recently closed tab on most browsers (which is actually incredibly useful).
4. ⌘ + , opens the settings for almost every application out there.
5. ⌥ + delete allows you to delete an entire word, instead of just deleting one character.