Kids these days will be able to touch type before they reach their teens. Technology has been part of their daily life for as long as they can remember. However, for a lot of ‘older’ people (i.e. anyone over 30!) typing doesn’t come naturally. This means that a lot of people are still pecking away with one finger at their keyboard…..which is extraordinarily slow when compared to those kids! Often the ‘pecking’ technique will only achieve up to 20 words per minute (wpm in the trade!). Also if you have to concentrate so intently on the act of typing, you can’t be thinking ahead to what you want to write.
Learning to touch type can easily increase your wpm to 40 and often closer to 60 wpm. This would reduce the time you spend typing by at least half. So for every hour typing at your computer, you would get an extra 30 minutes to move on to the next urgent task. Now that could mean you get home for dinner before it goes in the dog occasionally! Want to find out how fast you currently type? Google ‘typing speed test’ and off you go.
Other benefits of touch typing are:
- a significant reduction in making and correcting typing mistakes,
- you will tend to use the keyboard much more gently so reducing the aches and pains in yours fingers at the end of the day,
- lower stress levels as you no longer get so annoyed at how long everything is taking and how far behind you are getting!
If you are interested in learning more, just google ‘touch typing courses’ – most are online (after all you will be learning on a keyboard!). Find one that you think you will like, and Bob’s your uncle.
This is a key life skill nowadays, and one that we insist our PA’s have. It ensures we are working efficiently and can work from voice recordings to convert dictations into letters, reports etcetera accurately.
