How to Type Faster: 12 Tips to Increase Your Typing Speed

Slow typing makes notes and emails take longer than they should and slows the rest of your workflow. Learning how to type faster is one of the few skills that pays off in nearly every part of a desk job. If you're wondering "how do I type faster?" or "how can we type fast without sacrificing accuracy?", start with a baseline test and short daily drills built around home row technique.

Knowledge workers spend around 28 hours per week on email and internal collaboration, with information searches taking up part of the same block. Start by measuring your baseline, then build accuracy and speed through short, focused practice.

The Short on Time Version

• The average typist reaches about 52 WPM, and above-average speed with consistently high accuracy is a good practical typing benchmark.
• Touch typing with your fingers anchored on the home row, practiced in short daily drills, is a reliable path to typing faster.
• Hold accuracy steady before you chase speed, then retest weekly and raise your target a little at a time.
• For meetings and long drafts, voice input can help; in one smartphone-keyboard study, speech recognition was roughly three times faster than typing, and an AI notetaker and Conversational Knowledge Engine like Otter can capture the meetings you choose, transcribe them, and build a searchable record across your conversations so you only type where typing matters.

What Is a Good Typing Speed? (Average WPM by Skill Level)

The average typist clocks about 52 WPM, based on a 136-million-keystroke study of 168,000 participants, though those participants opted into a typing test site, so the true population median is likely lower. Scores around 100 WPM are near expert typing territory, and a good practical typing speed is above average with consistently high accuracy.

Typing ability is a continuous distribution with no natural breakpoints, so treat the labels below as editorial shorthand rather than scientific categories.

Because typing ability is continuous, these ranges are rough practice bands rather than scientific categories.

How to increase WPM depends on which stage you're in, so match your practice to your level:

• Under 30 WPM: Learn the home row and retire hunt-and-peck; structured lessons beat raw repetition.
• 40 to 60 WPM: Stop looking down at the keys, and lock in accuracy before pushing speed.
• 60 to 80 WPM: Drill your weakest keys and letter pairs, and start reading a word ahead.
• 80 to 100 WPM: Practice rollover technique and add short speed bursts to your sessions.
• 100 WPM or higher: Train on real-world text with punctuation and numbers.

Practice the habits that move you into the next band.

How to Improve Typing Speed: 12 Fast Typing Tips That Actually Work

Short, focused practice moves your words per minute (WPM) upward, and the fast typing tips below are organized so you can start with a baseline and build from there.

1. Take a Typing Speed Test to Find Your WPM

Measure your current WPM first. Free typing tests can calculate speed and accuracy; take a few tests and average the results, since any single run can swing high or low. This is your baseline for setting realistic goals and watching your improvement over time.

2. Practice Typing Every Day

Similar to learning a new language, the more you practice, the more fluent you get. Short daily sessions build the muscle memory that makes key locations feel automatic.

Although learning typing is different for everyone, the touch typing training program Searsol claims it takes students 10 hours of practice to hit 15 WPM, 30 hours to reach 25 WPM, and 70 hours to type 40 WPM. Improvement usually comes from accumulated hours.

3. Type Accurately Before You Type Fast

Accuracy comes first. In the 136-million-keystroke data, slower typists were more likely to make wrong-letter substitution errors, and errors slow the whole loop when you stop to fix them.

Keep accuracy consistently high before raising your speed targets. That one rule improves typing speed and accuracy together instead of trading one for the other.

4. Learn Touch Typing (Home Row Method)

Touch typing is typing without looking at the keys. Standard touch typists averaged 80 WPM in one study, while nonstandard self-taught typists averaged 72 WPM as long as they could see the keyboard. The 136-million-keystroke analysis found that speed was predicted by how many fingers a typist used and rollover technique, both of which touch typing makes possible.

Start with the home row: left hand on A-S-D-F, right hand on J-K-L-;, thumbs on the spacebar, and pinkies reaching to Shift. Then stop looking down. Rollover works well when performance does not depend on visual attention, so slow down and reset when you catch yourself peeking.

5. Use Proper Typing Posture

Good posture reduces strain and supports typing faster on a computer keyboard for hours at a time. Sit with your feet flat and your back supported. Arrange your keyboard so your wrists stay neutral instead of bending in any direction, following keyboard guidance. Center the monitor in front of you at a height where you can look straight ahead, roughly 20 to 40 inches away.

Keep the keyboard at or slightly below elbow height, sloped gently away from you; this position minimizes muscle load while typing. Wrist rests are for resting, so keep your wrists floating while actively keying.

6. Stretch Your Hands and Prevent Typing Fatigue

Typing for long periods in awkward positions can cause muscle fatigue. Build short breaks into your day for hand stretches and shoulder rolls, which ease discomfort and keep tension out of your hands.

7. Choose the Best Keyboard for Typing Speed

Keyboards vary in how they support your hands and wrists, though a "faster keyboard" on its own won't make you a faster typer. Split and ergonomic designs may make it easier to hold neutral wrist postures, and research on vertical split keyboards found a vertical split keyboard kept wrists in the lowest-risk zone for carpal tunnel syndrome 71% of the time versus 44% on a traditional board.

If you type on a laptop all day, consider an external full-size or ergonomic keyboard for long sessions. Mechanical keyboards can feel different over long sessions. Buy for comfort and endurance; mechanical switches alone rarely raise WPM.

8. Best Typing Practice Websites and Apps

The right tool depends on your level and what keeps you coming back. Any of these can give you structure and help beginners learn how to type fast through repeatable practice:

If racing is not motivating, arcade-style typing games can make drills feel less repetitive by turning words and letter patterns into quick reaction practice.

9. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts to Save Time

Shortcuts save time between the typing. Ctrl + Backspace (Option + Delete on Mac) deletes a whole word instead of one character at a time; with Ctrl + Z for undo and standard copy/paste, errors stop stalling your flow. And you can still impress your workmates by opening search in one swift move (hint: Ctrl + F). On Windows 11, you can also look for autocorrect options under Settings > Time & language > Typing.

A text expander can also help: type a short abbreviation and it expands into a full phrase you use constantly, like your meeting link or email sign-off.

10. Type in Chunks, Not Single Keys

Skilled typists activate multiple keystrokes in parallel, chunking common words and letter pairs into single motions. Practice shifting your eyes to the next word before you finish the current one.

Rollover is the related technique: pressing the next key before you've fully released the previous one. Analysis of 136 million keystrokes found the fastest typists rely on rollover.

11. Set Typing Goals to Increase Your WPM

Improvement happens when you challenge yourself, but that doesn't mean targeting 100 WPM in a week. Set small incremental goals and reward yourself at each milestone, or focus on one area at a time, like tricky letter combinations or holding accuracy steady under pressure.

12. Track Your Typing Progress and WPM Over Time

If you want to type quicker, retake a free typing test regularly and record your speed. Then use the data: check which letters you miss most often and spend a focused block drilling just those letter pairs, or let an adaptive tool generate lessons built around your weak spots.

Fixing the handful of keys you miss most can be more useful than repeating another generic test run, and it's how average typists become better typers over months rather than years.

Voice vs Keyboard Typing: Which Is Faster?

Even at 80 WPM, your fingers can't keep up with a conversation. Speech recognition reached 161.20 WPM in English versus 53.46 WPM on a keyboard, roughly three times faster, though the comparison used smartphone touchscreen keyboards rather than full-size desktop ones. For live conversations and long first drafts, saying words often captures them faster than typing.

Speech-to-text tools fit meetings, interviews, and long first drafts. Otter.ai is an AI notetaker and Conversational Knowledge Engine that can be configured to join the scheduled meetings you choose and transcribe the conversation. We turn those conversations into records with summaries, action items, decisions, and searchable context, then connect those records into a conversation intelligence layer across your meeting history. 

Otter AI Chat lets you ask questions across that history, like what a customer said about pricing on last week's call, and returns the answer with timestamp and speaker attribution, no searching through recordings required. Live AI features can also answer questions and draft action items mid-call.

Type Less by Letting Otter Handle Meetings

Faster typing pays off for the writing that actually needs your hands on the keyboard: status reports, thoughtful emails, code, structured documents. Meetings are the exception. Otter takes them off your plate.

For the typing you can skip, the notes you'd have scrambled to capture, the recap you'd have written up afterward, and the follow-up email you'd have typed from memory all come out of the conversation itself. Ask Otter AI Chat what a customer said about pricing on last week's call and you get the answer with speaker attribution, no need to type a summary from your notes.

Otter connects to Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams and can be configured to automatically join the calls you choose, and accepts audio and video uploads in more than 30 formats (MP3, MP4, WAV, and more). The more than 30 integrations, including Claude/ChatGPT, Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, and Jira, push what was said and decided into the tools you already work in, with automated updates available via MCP, so the follow-ups you'd normally type end up where they belong. Professionals and teams using Otter save over 4 hours per week this way.

Try Otter free or request a demo.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Type Faster

How Do I Go From 40 WPM to 80 WPM?

Yes. If you already type around 40 WPM, the path to 80 WPM is to stop looking down, keep accuracy high, drill your weakest keys and letter pairs, and raise your target gradually. Expect steady practice over months. Searsol's practice-hours estimates suggest students reach 15 WPM after 10 hours, 25 WPM after 30 hours, and 40 WPM after 70 hours, so meaningful gains beyond 40 WPM usually take sustained hours of practice.

Is Keybr or Monkeytype Better for Learning How to Type Fast?

Keybr is better while you are still building touch-typing muscle memory because its adaptive lessons target weak keys and show per-key stats. Monkeytype is better once you can touch type and want customizable tests, account history, and leaderboards for faster solo practice.

Do Mechanical Keyboards Make You Type Faster?

The keyboard alone rarely boosts speed. Mechanical switches can feel clearer or more comfortable to some typists, while split and ergonomic designs may make neutral wrist posture easier. Choose for comfort and endurance. Hardware alone rarely changes your WPM.

What Typing Speed Do Employers Expect?

Requirements vary by role, so check the specific job posting. A score above the 52 WPM average can be a useful practical benchmark for office work, while roles that involve heavy typing may place more emphasis on speed and accuracy.

How Long Does It Take to Learn to Type Faster?

Timelines vary. Basic home row familiarity can come quickly, but real speed gains usually require repeated practice over weeks or months. Searsol estimates roughly 10 hours to hit 15 WPM, 30 hours to reach 25 WPM, and 70 hours to reach 40 WPM, which points to a useful rule of thumb: total practice hours matter more than a fixed calendar promise.