Improving your typing skill is one of the fastest ways to boost your productivity significantly; whenever you want to deliver ideas directly from the brain or take quick notes for everything, instead of fetching a pen and paper, learning to type faster and edit the passage with keyboard shortcuts are key to achieve. Apparently, it is a basic skill in the modern world, but not everyone notices that could consume a lot of time in the long run.
Simply take several minutes to learn how to well-used of your ten fingers to the corresponding keystrokes; then practice it until you do not need to look at the keyboard. At first, focus on accuracy. It takes time to build muscle memory, so practicing it as a time-killing hobby instead of faffing around may do good for you. Here will introduce some useful typing tips and websites for you to start with.
The right way to use the keyboard
Put your index fingers on the small bumps on the keys ‘F’ and ‘J’ as home position, and memorize the corresponding keystrokes for each finger. You should always go back to the home position for resting.
According to Wikipedia, the definition of each “word” is often standardized to be five characters or keystrokes long in English, including spaces and punctuation. Typing speed is measured in either Words per Minute (WPM) or Characters per Minute (CPM). The average WPM on 10fastfingers is 42 WPM.
Keybr.com
This web application focuses on practicing specific key accuracy by using the algorithm. While you are typing the random words generated on the screen, the algorithm will do the calculation based on your performance by providing statistics to review. As a result, the system will then generate another passage for you according to your weaknesses. The indicators on top of the screen show you the overall typing speed, accuracy and the specific characters’ performance. Besides, It provides typing tests and multiplayer online competitions, all sorts of means to boost your typing skill in an interesting way.
10fastfingers.com
Another helpful website is 10fastfingers, it provides two levels of 1-min typing tests, typing competitions and a variety of passages for text practising. The most special feature of this website is that it provides multiple languages for practising besides English, including Chinese, which benefits users to practice different input methods in one go.
Chinese input method: Cangjie
As Chinese is our mother language, typing in Chinese is essential for us. Among many Chinese input methods, Cangjie provides the most accurate and fastest speed for users instead of memorising the word-selecting position like Quick. To practice, set this input method as default in your phone, and force yourself to practice whenever you are chatting with friends or searching for anything on the internet, a dramatic result will be seen quickly.
This website provides you with a tool to practice Cangjie in two ways. At first, try to practice the left one which helps to get more familiar with different groups of the basic character components in Cangjie, how to associate the basic shapes of a word and facilitate memorization. The right one provides practice for general categories of decomposition rules. It is quite easy for us who have already known basic Chinese typing like Quick, just keep practising for a month or two and you will get sophisticated with that.
Well use the shortcuts:
Instead of using backspace for each character repeatedly when doing the correction, editing and formatting with keyboard shortcuts can help you save a lot of time. For example, move a cursor one word at a time by pressing Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow, or select text to edit by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow. Depending on the computer system you are using, their official websites provide a full list of shortcut keys for reference.
For Mac users:
https://support.apple.com/en-hk/HT201236
For Windows users:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-dcc61a57-8ff0-cffe-9796-cb9706c75eec#WindowsVersion=Windows_10
Changing a typing habit is not an easy thing as long as you are willing to do so. Small steps can lead to big changes, let’s try it today!