learn to touch type

I don’t have much of a need to type much these days – no one really bothers to email me, and they rarely respond to my emails. Friends are not online most of the time, so I don’t get the chance to practise with instant messaging. I don’t have essays to type up either. So I guess typing 70 WPM shouldn’t be a big deal to me. Even if I had learnt, but rarely use this skill, I would eventually drop back to a slow pace. I just don’t type that often.

But it’d still be fun to master the keyboard!! :p

Haven’t mastered the numbers and symbols as yet. They are even trickier to remember than the plain old numbers.

I can touch-type up to 44 WPM (I did a typing test online), which is actually past my old peck-and-hunting speed of 43 WPM. So at least I’ve reached my first goal.

I like touch-typing. At first, I was embarrassed about the idea of being a sluggish typer all over again. But to my surprise, nobody really cared about my speed. Instead, they seemed to be impressed that I was typing properly, and rarely looking at the keyboard. I guess it makes you look more intelligent. This is a big encouragement.

It’s been nearly 3 months since I’ve started to learn how to type the proper way. During that time, I had noticed little improvements in my skills, especially after doing a lot of typing (e.g. blogging, typing a letter). I can keep up slightly better in a private online chat.

Today, my accuracy has improved a little, as well as my speed. I scored around 30ish WPM on the typing test. I took a few other tests on different sites just to make sure. I didn’t imagine to get there so quickly. I don’t practise as much as I should be, but I rarely revert back to ‘peck and hunt’ these days.

I am a little less impatient now that I’m closer to my improper typing style speed, which is 43ish WPM. Hopefully I will get past 40 WPM by the end of next month, and then 50 WPM after that. Even with my old typing style, I cannot remember ever scoring 50 WPM. That will be exciting. I have to keep this up.

I am weak on the numbers/symbols, sigh, so that will be another thing I should be working on. I’m dreading it, but it should be rewarding in the end.

If I don’t push myself, I’ll never get anywhere.

Getting there slowly, but surely.

Oh, this is long… lol

My result was 28 Words Per Minute on http://www.typingtest.com

Current aim is to get up to my peck-typing speed, which is around 43 WPM (when looking at the keyboard).

Not bad.

Despite being slow as a snail, and making occassional errors and peeks, I’m not doing too bad on this. My speed has gone up a bit from a measly 9 WPM to 12 WPM in little over a day. So my memory isn’t all that bad after all. Just trying to focus on my accuracy rather than speed.
Even though I still peck the keyboard with 2 fingers (particularly useful for passwords and when chatting online to impatient friends), I’m finally making an effort to master the ‘proper’ way in my spare time. Maybe I’ll even spite my father by practising whilst typing up his essays for him.

Hey, beggars can’t be choosers! :p

And I’ll have to congratulate myself for touch-typing everything I’ve just written here!

Ok, that’s it. I’m getting one of those blank keyboards, or something like it. :(

Well, I’m pleased to say that, after much frustration, I am learning how to touch-type… and it’s not as hard as the first time. I can see some progress in just a couple of days, and that’s encouraging.
Needless to say, I’m back to my snail days (OK, not entirely – sometimes I lose my patience. Especially with passwords.) Once I pick up some speed, I will start touch-typing 100%.

By the way, I was attempting to touch-type this, but then I cheated halfway through.

Okay, so they say practise makes perfect… But who has the patience to start all over again from scratch? Anyway, even though I can survive without this skill, I’m not giving up…

...even though I’ve bought a software that teaches how to touch type. The internet tends to distract me a lot, instead of continuing my learning. The only motivation I get nowadays in the realisation that everyone else is getting ahead of me.