If you’re a developer, Steve Yegge has some advice: learn to type. Yegge’s posts are always amusing and instructive so if you haven’t already seen his rant on developers who don’t touch type, be sure to take a look.
But, you say, “I already know how to type.” Well then, Ali Abdaal also has some advice: learn to type fast. Abdaal is a really fast typist and describes it as his “superpower.” It turns out that it’s not that hard to increase your speed. Abdaal says that if you spend 10 minutes a day practicing, your speed will increase dramatically.
But why should you bother and what’s the best way to practice? Abdaal says that merely increasing your typing speed can lead to a two times increase in your productivity. At least that’s what he’s found. Yegge’s post suggests the same is true for developers. Of course, Abdaal’s best typing speed is 155 words/minute so if your speed is the more typical 45 words/minute, you have some work to do.
Not to worry though, Abdaal has 10 steps to help you improve. Some of them, like “learn keyboard shortcuts” are givens for people in our business. Emacs and Vim users, in particular, are all about using keyboard shortcuts to speed their typing and editing. Other suggestions are obvious. “Try not to look at the keyboard” is an example of that. Some are not at all obvious: “Make noise when you’re typing.” Lovers of mechanical keyboards will understand that suggestion. Abdaal says that he’s found that a loud keyboard seems to help his typing performance.
His most useful suggestion, I think, is to use sites like 10fastfingers to practice and improve your speed. Abdaal likes 10fastfingers best but also mentions keybr.
Watch the video to see his other suggestions and watch 10fastfingers and keybr in action. The video is 15 minutes, 32 seconds so you’ll probably have to schedule some time. Regardless, watch the video and start working on getting your typing up to speed.