What is touch typing?

Maybe you heard „touch typing” somewhere and you’re wondering what it is. Maybe you heard that it can make you type faster. Maybe you come here from my other article where I talk about this typing method.

What’s the deal about this whole „touch typing”? Is it really worth looking into this skill and learning it? Or is it just some marketing slogan?

I will answer those questions in this article. Let’s get started.

Starting with the most basic question that you can ask about touch typing. What is it?

The answer to this question is really simple. It is a skill that you learn which can lead to better speed.

Not only higher typing speed. There are many benefits to learning this typing method. It is one of the more advanced ones and takes effort to learn. But once you do it pays off. I made a whole article just about the benefits that you can get from learning this skill. You can check it out here – ARTICLE BENEFITS OF TOUCH TYPING

The touch typing method itself contains many elements. Many small skills that you need to learn in order to master this typing technique. One of the beginning ones is creating a mental image of your keyboard in muscle memory.

I know, it sounds kinda weird. Don’t worry, you don’t need to connect to some sci-fi machine. It is done by proper practice.

Alright, now I will sum everything up for you. What is touch typing?

Touch typing is an advanced typing method. This skill is based on the muscle memory that you create during proper practice. There are many aspects of this skill and it takes time to learn it. However, with its complexity, it also gives a lot of benefits. Touch typing has a huge potential when it comes to typing speed.

You can achieve such high speeds because of many things. One of them is the finger movement efficiency that touch typing provides. Because of the way this technique works you end up spending less time moving your fingers around the keyboard.

Even more importantly you never lift your fingers off the keyboard. You don’t even look at the keyboard.

If you want to know a bit more about how touch typing works in practice you can read my other article. It is a great place to start your touch typing journey. This article about touch typing basics is here – ARTICLE TOUCH TYPING BASICS

Can the average person touch type?

Is it possible for anyone to touch type? No. There are people who can’t use this exact typing method or can’t even type on the keyboard at all because of their health.

However when we talk about your average person who doesn’t have such health issues – then yes, it is possible. Anyone can learn touch typing if they learn the right way. It is important for you to follow certain rules of learning touch typing to avoid learning bad habits.

If you don’t then you can learn some bad habits which will hold you down. So, what’s the answer to the question. Can the average person touch type?

Touch typing is a skill that almost anyone can learn (with an exception of health problems). An average person can definitely learn this skill. What can give you an incorrect impression are bad habits. They will slow you down and make it seem like you can’t learn touch typing. That’s why it is important to avoid learning them.

But how can you avoid creating bad habits when learning touch typing? You don’t even know them yet.

Well, you can’t avoid everything without certain knowledge and experience. However, what you can do is go slow. Don’t rush learning touch typing. Take your time to properly learn the fundamentals of this typing technique. Here’s the link to my article about the fundamentals of touch typing – ARTICLE TOUCH TYPING BASICS

Even if you go really slow you can’t avoid everything. Once you notice a bad typing habit take your time to get rid of it. Change it to a proper technique.

Is touch typing worth it?

Is it worth spending all this time and effort just to learn some typing method? Will you really benefit from doing so?

First of all, let’s talk about a very important aspect of this question. Is touch typing worth it? The answer is – It all depends on who you are.

Seriously, there’s no use for learning touch typing when your job has nothing to do with typing on the keyboard. If anything that you do has very little to do with using a keyboard. Then what’s the point?

Of course, if you are not using your keyboard often you will not benefit a lot from learning touch typing. It is a typing technique. To be useful you need to type.

If you type a lot on your keyboard then you can be interested in this skill. Touch typing has a great effect on typing speed, accuracy, and much more. Because of touch typing, you don’t need to look down at your keyboard ever again so you can maintain a healthier posture.

There are so many benefits that I’ve created a whole article just about them. In there I talk about the benefits that you will get from learning touch typing. You can read this article here – ARTICLE BENEFITS OF TOUCH TYPING

Now let’s sum everything up. Is touch typing really worth it?

Touch typing is an advanced typing method that has a great impact on typing. With the right practice, it can improve speed, comfort, and much more. However, not everyone will benefit from learning touch typing. This skill gives the most to those who spend more than an hour typing every day.

You can definitely learn touch typing just for fun. If that’s what you want to learn it for I fully support you. This skill is a lot of fun. Especially if you take out the frustration from lack of progress.

How to learn touch typing?

Alright, you’ve decided to learn touch typing. Great! That’s the first step to learning it. But how do you keep going? How can you learn touch typing?

Fortunately, you have my blog! So you don’t need to worry about it! There’s plenty of information for you here.

I’m only partly joking. It is in fact very important to have certain knowledge about touch typing before even starting. If you don’t have it you can learn bad habits that will sabotage you for who knows how long.

The thing that I recommend you the most to do is to check out my touch typing course. I’ve put there all of the knowledge you might need and all of my experience with touch typing. This is the best possible way that I know to learn touch typing. You can read more details about my course here – MY TOUCH TYPING COURSE

But what if you don’t want my course? What if you want to go at it alone?

I will be honest with you – it might be hard but it’s definitely possible. I’ve been there. I had to change my layout and start all over again. It was faster to start from scratch than to try to get rid of all those bad habits.

But if I were to give you one piece of advice for learning touch typing it would be this:

Learning touch typing is a time-consuming process. It takes a lot of effort to learn this skill. It is very important to focus on fundamental techniques. You need to learn the whole layout with your muscle memory. Then you need to practice in order to get better at touch typing. Be patient, results will come with proper practice.

How do you know which is proper practice? I can’t tell you in just a few words. There are many aspects of it and even some tools to make it better.

As I said fundamental technique is very important. That’s why I’ve made an article about touch typing basics. You can read it here – ARTICLE TOUCH TYPING BASICS

Is touch typing outdated?

This touch typing skill that I’m talking about. Is it still valid? Or maybe there are way more effective ways to type?

As you already know touch typing isn’t the only way to type. There are many other typing methods. Most of them are less effective than touch typing. However, there are some futuristic methods out there that have the potential to beat touch typing.

Those typing techniques are even more advanced and require specialized training to do them effectively. But they are experimental. They are unstable and don’t have native support on any operating system.

In other words, they require a lot more work and knowledge than touch typing. To be honest you would hardly ever need those speeds that they can provide.

So what does touch typing look like compared to them? Yes, touch typing is not the most movement-efficient typing technique out there. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not efficient. In fact, it is a great typing method that utilizes finger movement extremely well if done correctly.

So what’s the answer to the question? Is touch typing outdated?

Touch typing is a very good typing technique. It makes great use of finger movement if done correctly. It has great movement efficiency. It also uses muscle memory to type which enables you to reach a very impressive speed. Overall it is one of the best typing methods that exist combining simplicity and effectiveness.

No, touch typing is not outdated. And it won’t be for a very long time. It is a very well-designed typing technique that gives you great benefits from using it.

Touch typing has so many of those benefits that I’ve created a whole article just about them. I talk there about the results that touch typing provides and all the benefits along the way. You can read more about it here – ARTICLE TOUCH TYPING BENEFITS

Is touch typing a valuable skill?

Touch typing is a great technique that lets you type using your muscle memory. With that, it has great potential when it comes to speed and accuracy. It’s all thanks to the nature of muscle memory. It can recall things you’ve learned extremely fast and effectively.

Touch typing is proven to be a great typing method when it comes to sheer performance. Plus a few other things like health and comfort. But is it actually a valuable skill that makes a real difference for you? Does it matter if you practice how fast you type?

It depends on what you are doing. If you are a janitor then you won’t get pretty much any benefit from touch typing. That’s because you won’t use it. As a janitor, you could be a secret time master but even then you won’t need touch typing to turn back time and disappear.

However, if you type on your keyboard a lot then touch typing will be great for you. It will give you many benefits. If you want to read more about those benefits you can check out my article. It’s here – ARTICLE BENEFITS OF TOUCH TYPING

Touch typing will also help you when applying for a job. Not every job, of course. However, there are plenty of jobs out there that actually involve typing for example software development. Once you get a valid typing certificate you can get quite ahead of your competition when applying.

Touch typing is a great skill when you are using it often. This typing method won’t make any difference for a sports team couch. Touch typing is a great skill to learn for jobs that include a lot of typing (like software development) and makes a lot of difference when applying for such jobs (when you have a valid certificate).

Now, what do I mean by saying „a valid certificate”? There are a few ways to get a good typing test. There are even ways to get an official typing certificate (Yes, there is such a thing in the US). If you want to learn more about it you can read my article on this topic. It’s here – ARTICLE TYPING CERTIFICATE

How long does it take to learn touch typing?

It is an advanced typing method, I’m not gonna lie. It will take some time and effort. Actually, a lot of time and effort to learn touch typing at a good level.

But that’s not a good answer. How much time does it take exactly?

In order to answer this question, I’ve run some tests and collected data. With it, I can say an average improvement in touch typing over time using free online programs.

Those tests with data graphs are in my other article. It’s all about the time that it takes to learn touch typing. You can check it out here – ARTICLE TIME TO LEARN TOUCH TYPING

Here I will only give you a quick answer:

Learning touch typing takes 10 months to learn from the very beginning to 100 WPM. It is an average speed which means that you can type at that speed without even thinking about typing. You can expect to reach a speed of 100 WPM in 10 months if you practice regularly using free tools.

When learning touch typing, especially using free tools, be patient. You can’t speed things up too much. You need experience and knowledge for it. Even with experience it still takes time and effort even though it’s faster. You just need to practice learning touch typing.