How to Improve Your Typing Speed (15-Minute Daily Plan)
To improve your typing speed, practice accurately before you practice fast, use the same finger for the same key every time, and prepare the next keystroke while you finish the current one. Short daily sessions of about 15 minutes, with one timed test to track your numbers, are easier to keep up than occasional long ones. Start by finding your baseline with our Typing Speed Test, then work through the plan below.
For context, a 2018 study of 168,960 volunteers who took an online typing test found an average of 51.56 words per minute (WPM). The fastest 10 percent typed above roughly 78 WPM and the slowest 10 percent below roughly 26 WPM. The fast and slow groups differ in measurable habits: how many fingers they use, how many errors they make and how much they overlap their keystrokes.
Where Your Speed Stands
These benchmarks come from Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta's 2018 analysis of 136 million keystrokes. Participants copied sentences, and speed is words per minute of the text they typed, with every five characters counted as one word.
| Speed | Where it puts you |
|---|---|
| Below about 26 WPM | Slowest 10 percent of participants |
| About 52 WPM | The average (51.56, standard deviation 20.2) |
| Above about 78 WPM | Fastest 10 percent of participants |
| 120 WPM or more | The very fastest typists in the dataset |
Two cautions apply. The volunteers chose to take a typing test, so they are not a random sample of all computer users, and copying text is faster than composing it, because writing includes thinking time. Use the numbers as a rough guide, not a grade.
A faster speed saves real time. If you write 10,000 words a week and type steadily, 35 WPM means about 4.8 hours of pure typing (10,000 ÷ 35 ÷ 60), while 70 WPM means about 2.4 hours. That difference of roughly 2.4 hours a week adds up to about 124 hours over 52 weeks, though real writing includes pauses, so your actual saving will be smaller.
Do You Need to Touch Type?
Touch typing, where each finger owns specific keys, is the classic method, but the research is more nuanced than "ten fingers or nothing."
- In the 2018 study, fast typists reported using more fingers than slow typists (8.4 versus 5.3 on average), and more fingers went with higher speed. Trained typists were only about 5 WPM faster than untrained ones on average.
- A 2016 motion-capture study by Feit, Weir and Oulasvirta found that self-taught typists can reach speeds comparable to touch typists, even with fewer fingers. Three habits predicted high performance: each letter is always pressed by the same finger, the next keystrokes are prepared early, and the hands move as little as possible.
The practical lesson is to make your finger assignments consistent and to use more fingers, and the standard touch-typing map is the easiest consistent system to learn.
The home row
Rest your fingers on the home row, the middle row of letter keys, with your index fingers on F and J (both have small raised bumps so you can find them without looking):
Left hand: pinky→A ring→S middle→D index→F
Right hand: index→J middle→K ring→L pinky→;
Thumbs: both rest on the space bar
From that position, each finger covers the keys above and below it:
Left pinky: Q, A, Z, 1, Tab, Caps, Shift
Left ring: W, S, X, 2
Left middle: E, D, C, 3
Left index: R, F, V, T, G, B, 4, 5
Right index: U, J, M, Y, H, N, 6, 7
Right middle: I, K, comma, 8
Right ring: O, L, period, 9
Right pinky: P, ;, /, 0, [, ], ', Enter, Shift
Return your fingers to the home row after each key. That habit builds the map in your muscle memory, so you can stop searching for keys.
A 15-Minute Daily Practice Plan
Short, regular sessions are easier to sustain than a long weekly marathon. Here is a simple structure.
Minutes 1 to 5: warm-up drills
Type these repeatedly and aim for zero errors, not speed:
asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl;
fjfj dkdk slsl a;a; fjfj dkdk
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Minutes 5 to 10: weak-key practice
Everyone has keys that slow them down. Common trouble spots are Q and Z (pinky stretches), B and Y (index finger reaches), numbers and punctuation. Pick your weakest keys and practice words that use them heavily. If your right pinky is weak, try "loop," "pool," "people" and "apple." If numbers slow you down, retype phone numbers, dates and addresses.
Minutes 10 to 15: one timed test
Take one timed test and record the result. Our Typing Speed Test lets you pick 15, 30, 60 or 120 seconds and reports WPM, accuracy and consistency, and its WPM counts only correctly typed characters. Use the 60-second option when you want to compare against the benchmarks above. If you want to check a longer passage yourself, paste it into the Word Counter and divide the word count by your minutes.
Habits That Slow You Down
Looking down at your hands
Every glance at the keyboard adds a visual search step and breaks your rhythm. Learning the layout by feel means typing more slowly at first, so practice with the key labels covered (a towel over the keyboard works) and check the screen instead of your fingers. The 2016 motion-capture study found that people can type without looking at their fingers even if they never learned touch typing.
Inconsistent fingers
If you press the same letter with different fingers depending on the word, your brain cannot build a reliable map. Choose one finger for each key and stick with it, even if it feels slower for a while.
Trading accuracy for speed
Errors are expensive. Each mistake costs at least two extra keystrokes (a backspace and a retype), plus the time to notice it, so if you fix each one as you go, 95 percent accuracy means roughly a tenth of your keystrokes go to corrections. The 2018 study found that faster typists make fewer errors and that reducing errors by a small margin can produce a large gain in speed. A common target is 95 percent accuracy or better before you push for more WPM.
Tension in your hands and wrists
OSHA's workstation guidance says your hands and wrists should be straight and your forearms roughly parallel to the floor. If you use a wrist rest, your hands should move freely above it while you type, and you should rest the heel of your palm on the pad, not your wrist, during pauses. OSHA warns that resting the wrist on a support while typing may inhibit wrist motion and increase awkward postures.
Technique Tips for Faster Typing
- Overlap your keystrokes. In the 2018 study, the majority of fast typists pressed the next key before releasing the previous one (called rollover) on 40 to 70 percent of keypresses, while slow typists used almost none. The study shows that fast typing and rollover go together, but not that forcing it will make you faster, so let it develop as your accuracy improves.
- Read ahead. Keep your eyes on the next word while your fingers finish the current one, so the next keystrokes are ready in advance.
- Type words as chunks. Practice common words and endings such as "the," "ing" and "tion" as single fluid motions instead of separate letters.
- Practice with real text. Drills build the map, but emails, code or essays build the vocabulary and punctuation patterns you actually type.
- Use the opposite Shift key. For a capital letter typed with your left hand, press the right Shift key, and the reverse.
- Learn keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+A keep your hands on the keys instead of reaching for the mouse.
Measure Your Progress
Retest once a week at the same time of day, and compare averages of two or three tests instead of a single best run.
| Metric | What it tells you | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Net WPM | Your usable speed after errors | Track the weekly average |
| Accuracy | Share of characters typed correctly | Aim for 95 percent or better before pushing speed |
| Consistency | How steady your pace is during a test | Aim for a steady rhythm, not bursts and stalls |
Progress differs a lot from person to person, and gains usually slow as you get faster. If you change your finger habits or stop looking at the keyboard, expect your speed to dip first. When you plateau, drop back to accuracy drills and weak-key practice.
Type Comfortably for the Long Term
Speed is not worth pain in your hands. These points come from OSHA's computer workstation guidance and the American Optometric Association:
- Arm position. Keep your elbows close to your body and bent between 90 and 120 degrees, with your forearms roughly parallel to the floor.
- Wrist position. Keep your wrists straight. OSHA says to raise the back or front of the keyboard only as needed to reach a neutral wrist posture, and to skip the keyboard's feet if they increase wrist bending.
- Alternative keyboards. Split and other alternative keyboards can help you hold neutral wrist postures, but OSHA notes that available research does not conclusively show they prevent discomfort or injury, and you may need time to adjust.
- Move regularly. OSHA advises standing, stretching and walking around periodically. Our Pomodoro Timer can build those breaks into your day, and the Pomodoro Technique guide explains how.
- Rest your eyes. The American Optometric Association recommends the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, take a 20-second break to look at something 20 feet away.
If you get persistent pain, numbness or tingling in your hands or wrists, see a health care professional. Our utilities hub lists more timers and productivity tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it too late to learn touch typing as an adult?
No. Most computer users never receive formal touch-typing training. In the 2018 study, trained typists were only about 5 WPM faster than untrained ones on average, and in a 2016 study self-taught typists reached speeds comparable to touch typists. Speed comes from consistent finger use and accurate practice, which you can build at any age. Expect a temporary dip while you retrain your habits.
What is a good typing speed?
In a 2018 study of 168,960 online test takers, the average was 51.56 WPM, the fastest 10 percent typed above roughly 78 WPM, and the very fastest reached 120 WPM or more. A "good" speed depends on your work, but anything near or above 50 WPM with high accuracy is at or above that average. Your everyday speed while writing will be lower than your copy-typing speed.
Should I focus on speed or accuracy first?
Accuracy first. Each error costs at least two extra keystrokes plus the time to find it, and the 2018 study found that reducing errors by a small margin can produce a large gain in speed. Once you are consistently at 95 percent accuracy or better, push your pace gradually.
How is WPM calculated?
Typing tests treat a word as five characters, including spaces and punctuation, so gross WPM is characters typed divided by 5, divided by minutes. Tests then handle errors in different ways: our Typing Speed Test counts only correctly typed characters, while many tests subtract one word per minute for each uncorrected error. If you type 300 characters in one minute and 285 of them are correct, our test shows 285 ÷ 5 = 57 WPM with 95 percent accuracy (285 ÷ 300), and the subtraction method gives 60 - 15 = 45 WPM. Our Typing Speed Test reports both WPM and accuracy.
How long does it take to improve typing speed?
It depends on your starting habits and how consistently you practice, and there is no reliable timetable. Compare weekly averages over several weeks instead of judging single sessions, expect a dip if you change finger habits, and stay with accuracy-first practice through plateaus.
Sources
- Dhakal V, Feit AM, Kristensson PO, Oulasvirta A. Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, CHI 2018 (average WPM, percentile cutoffs, finger use, rollover, error findings).
- Feit AM, Weir D, Oulasvirta A. How We Type: Movement Strategies and Performance in Everyday Typing, CHI 2016.
- OSHA. Computer Workstations eTool: Keyboards, Wrist/Palm Supports and Good Working Positions.
- American Optometric Association. Computer vision syndrome (digital eye strain) (20-20-20 rule).
All sources were checked in September 2026.