Why touch typing is essential for academia? and It’s NOT about speed.

Touch typing is all about the idea that each finger has its own area on the keyboard. Thanks to that fact you can type without looking at the keys. Touch typing is a method based on muscle memory instead of sight. Practicing to use specific fingers to press specific letters in the keyboard in such a way it only travels the optimal distance in an optimal time and gets back to its place where it rightly belongs (in home-row). Eventually, you don’t think which finger to be used to press which key, instead, it happens naturally when you decide to type something. Just the thought is enough. Similar to how you press your car’s brake slightly even before you know it or like you open the doorknob without thinking how to do it just before doing it.

This method allows you to achieve a much higher speed of data entry like taking notes, entering information, commenting, capturing instead ideas, especially in online classes and lesson planning.

How much time you wasting in a minute of typing? (& It’s not about speed)

  • When you know where to place your fingers on home-row (on ASDF-JKL; keys) without looking, just by sensing the small ridges in the F and J key, then you’re saving 2 to 3 seconds every time you set your hands on the keyboard.
  • You don’t have to spend time searching for the keys by moving your hands away to see the letters embossed on every key. You can save around 1-2 seconds for every key you search for.
  • Using a few fingers (some people only use their index finger of each hand to type) to type limits your efficiency and drastically wastes all your energy in moving the whole hand instead of a few .mm of finger movements.

Let’s assume you take your hands away from the keyboard (for various reasons like turning a page, clicking on the mouse) and brings them back to the keyboard approximately 2 times for a sentence, then this simple hand placing will cost you at least 10 seconds for nothing for an entire minute of typing. Likewise, search for keys can cost you another 20 seconds in a whole minute.

Approximately, you only type for 25 seconds in a minute. That is 41% efficiency. Even if you believe you type faster than others without touch typing, you just only doing it with 50-60% efficiency.

And finally, you have to use your whole hands and shoulders for things you can do with a flick of fingers.

Awesome benefits of touch typing (even if you do it slow)

  1. Your eyes are exclusively for your work. Not for searching keys.
  2. A tremendous reduction in distraction. Switching your eye focus from the keyboard to the source material and vice-versa is agonizing especially when you want your focus on the content, not on the typing activity.
  3. You can focus on thinking and contemplating while typing. Just telling the words in your mind-voice discharges necessary instruction to your muscles to type the words instead of giving conscious effort and explicit instruction for every letter you want to press.
  4. It is the effortless way. No need to hold your shoulders up and suffer from neck pain and back pain later. Rest your palms as you can rest your body even during intense typing.
It’s easy to learn. (Yes really easy)

I wrote an article few years ago on my blog on how You can learn touch typing in an hour (if you have little passion and patience). Happy typing.

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