Writers and Typing: How Touch Typing Can Help

One of the great benefits of technology is that it makes skills that were previously accessible to only the elite, educated members of society accessible to everyone. Once upon a time, literacy was only an option for people who had access to massive libraries and large quantities of money to buy the books. Now, you can read millions of books on your phone or computer, or buy cheap copies from a printing press.

One of the many professions that technology has opened to the public is writing. From a fountain pen and ink to a blinking cursor on your computer screen, writing is available to everyone. However, if you don’t learn to use your tools properly, you won’t be able to take full advantage of that technological advancement.

Untrained typists rely on the hunt-and-peck method, typing slowly with two fingers while constantly looking back and forth from the keyboard to the screen. You might be able to get some speed with this method, but you certainly waste time and brain power on the back-and-forth.

Touch typing, a method in which you train your fingers to press on keys in a certain area of the keyboard, eventually relying on muscle memory to build up speed, is the fastest and most accurate method of typing out there. This technique saves your back and neck from stiffness, your eyes from strain, and your personal life from the wasted time spent hunting and pecking.

For people who write all day long, touch typing goes from a good idea to a necessity. Writers on a deadline can’t afford the loss of time and focus caused by shoddy technique.

Writers also need to respect their creative processes. Any writer knows how frustrating it is to lose a good idea, or to be interrupted in the middle of a flow of sentences. Hunting and pecking is a recipe for disaster, as it only works if you interrupt yourself to find the proper keys. It’s very difficult to find or maintain an idea while compulsively checking your fingers.

Touch typing can improve productivity and product quality for the same reasons;  your typing speed determines how long you have to work on a project. Typing more quickly gives you more time to perfect your work, and allows you to turn in more assigned pieces.

Improving your touch typing skills will reduce spelling and grammatical errors in your articles. Typos waste your time. If you know where all the keys are located on your keyboard, errors will be fewer and farther between. The more you practice effective touch typing techniques, the more accurate your typing will become.

Your financial goals can be impacted by the decision to learn touch typing as well – the more work you complete, the more you get paid. It’s important to learn how to touch type as soon as you can to improve your productivity and performance.

Knowing how to touch type will greatly improve your life as a writer. Honestly, with all these advantages, you can’t afford not to learn how to touch type.

Author Bio:-Chassie Lee is the Content Expert of Typesy – a premium keyboarding for education used by schools, businesses, homeschool parents, and individuals.