How to touch type: a two-week plan for adults who learned the wrong way

Before you start: decide if you need to

You might not. In a 2016 Aalto University study that filmed 30 typists, self-taught typists averaged 58.9 WPM and trained touch typists 57.8, with no significant difference. Some people using one or two fingers per hand topped 70 WPM. The self-taught group did spend about 40% of their time looking at the keyboard, against about 20% for touch typists, and that's the cost you pay. Our post on touch typing vs hunt and peck goes through when relearning is worth it.

If you look down for most keys or type under about 35 WPM, it's very likely worth it. If you're at 70 WPM with your own system and rarely look down, you have less to gain.

What actually makes adults fail

Researchers at the Technion gave 22 students an 8-hour touch-typing course and then had them type their own homework. Before the course they typed at 18.4 WPM by looking and only 8.1 WPM without looking. By the end of the course their touch typing reached 21.1 WPM. The paper's opening line is the warning every adult learner needs: success in training does not ensure that the skill carries into everyday use.

The authors' explanation is that people pick whichever method pays off right now. Looking at the keys is faster for weeks, so under deadline pressure you go back to it. The group that did best had a small penalty for looking at the keyboard built into practice, and their touch typing came out about 25% faster than the control group's.

So the plan below has one rule that matters more than any drill: once you start, you don't look at the keys, even when it's slow and even when it's annoying.

Set up before day 1

• Sit so your forearms are roughly level with the keyboard and your wrists aren't bent upward.
• Find the bumps on F and J with your index fingers. The other fingers rest on A S D and K L ; and the thumbs hover over the space bar.
• Read our touch typing finger chart once. You don't need to memorize it yet.
• Pick a way to stop yourself looking: a tea towel or a cardboard box over your hands works.
• Hold left Shift for letters typed by the right hand and right Shift for the left hand. This is the habit self-taught typists most often lack.

The two-week touch typing plan

Each day has the same shape: 5 minutes of review on yesterday's keys, 10 to 15 minutes on the new keys, and a few minutes of real words at the end. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough. If you can only do one session, do it every day rather than doubling up at the weekend; there's a reason for that further down.

For days 1 to 6, type into any plain text editor. Real words made only of the keys you know are better than random strings, because they train the movements you'll actually use.

Week 1: the letters

Day 1: home row only. Type a, s, d, f, j, k, l, ; in order, then words: as, add, all, fall, flask, salad, alfalfa. Go slowly enough that you never press a wrong key. Accuracy is the whole job this week.

Day 2: E and I, the middle fingers reaching up. Words: idea, slide, field, likes, failed, ideas. Each reach goes up and comes straight back to home.

Day 3: R, T, U and Y, the index fingers. Words: true, style, fruit, trusty, sturdy, jury. Skip any word with G or H in it; those arrive tomorrow.

Day 4: G and H, the index fingers stepping in. Words: light, high, height, eighth, grudge. Now most of the common short words are available, and the practice starts to feel like typing.

Day 5: O, W, Q and P, ring and little fingers on the top row. Words: power, quote, people, upward, request. P is the first awkward reach for most people; expect it to lag.

Day 6: the bottom row, C V B N M and then X Z , . /. Words: mix, crazy, number, novel, combat. Bottom-row keys are where people sneak back to the wrong finger, often C with the index finger. Watch for it.

Day 7: rest from new keys. Take a 10-word test three or four times with your hands covered. Speed doesn't matter. Count how often you had to stop and think. Expect something in the low teens of WPM or below, and don't be discouraged: in the Technion study, students started at 8 WPM without looking.

Week 2: real text

Day 8: capitals and Shift. Type sentences with names in them, holding the opposite Shift every time. Slow down rather than cheat with the wrong Shift; the habit sets this week or not at all.

Day 9: start real tests. Do several 25-word tests with accuracy as the target: 95% or better before you allow yourself to speed up. In word-count tests the clock starts at your first keystroke, so take a breath before you begin.

Day 10: same, plus a little punctuation: commas, full stops and apostrophes, all by the right hand's middle, ring and little fingers.

Day 11: switch to the practice page. After a few tests it has results to work with and builds 50-word drills leaning on the keys and words you miss, mixed with common words. If it has no history yet it gives you common words, which is fine for today.

Day 12: one 1-minute test at the start of the session and one at the end, with practice drills in between. Look at the most-missed keys afterwards. One or two keys will stand out; those are tomorrow's work.

Day 13: drill the slow keys. If a key is slow because you're still unsure which finger takes it, check the chart and make a decision.

Day 14: take three 1-minute tests and keep the middle score. Write it down with today's date. That's your baseline for the weeks after.

What to expect at the end of two weeks

Two weeks at 20 to 30 minutes a day is roughly 5 to 7 hours of practice. That's a little less than the Technion course, where students needed about 8 hours to finish and touch typed at around 21 WPM at the end. So a realistic expectation is somewhere around 15 to 25 WPM without looking, at high accuracy, and very likely slower than your old method. Our post on how long it takes to learn touch typing has the longer timeline.

The same study shows what happens next if you keep going. After another 6 hours of typing their own homework, the students' touch typing rose to 28.7 WPM, well past their old look-at-the-keys speed of 18.4.

Why short daily sessions work better

A 1978 study trained postal workers on a typewriter keyboard under four schedules. The group that practiced one hour a day learned the whole keyboard in about 35 hours of practice on average. The group doing two 2-hour sessions a day needed about 50, and was still behind on speed at 60 hours. The task was typing postcode-style material rather than prose, but it's one of the best-known results on spacing practice: more days beats longer days.

For an adult with a job, that means 20 minutes before work every day will beat a two-hour Sunday session, and it's easier to keep up.

Weeks 3 to 6: the switch

This is where the real decision gets made. You have three options, and only one of them works for most people.

Going cold turkey: touch type everything, including work email, from day 15. You'll be slow for a few weeks. This works if your job can tolerate it.

The split: touch type everything except one or two high-pressure contexts, such as live chat at work. Keep the exceptions few and named. If "except when I'm busy" is an exception, you're back to the old method within a month.

Practice only: touch type in practice sessions and type the old way the rest of the day. This is the option that fails. The Technion finding is exactly this pattern: the training works, and the everyday habit wins anyway.

During the switch, keep a 10-minute daily session and take one 1-minute test a day. A rising line on your history page is what keeps you going when work typing feels slow. When touch typing passes your old speed, plan the next step with our 40 to 80 WPM practice plan.

Common mistakes

Looking down "just to check". Every look teaches your hands that they don't need to know where the key is.

Going for speed in week 1. Errors at this stage are wrong finger movements being practiced.

Leaving numbers and symbols for never. Once the letters are steady, give the number row its own fortnight.

Avoiding the hard keys. The keys you avoid are the ones that send you back to looking.

Frequently asked questions

Can you learn touch typing in a week?

You can learn where every letter is in a week. Typing faster than you did before usually takes several more weeks of using it every day.

How do I learn to type without looking at the keyboard?

Cover your hands with a towel or box, keep your index fingers on the F and J bumps, and slow down until you can find each key by feel. Speed comes after the habit, not before.

Is it too late to learn touch typing as an adult?

No. The studies above were run on adults, and the Technion students went from 8 WPM to almost 29 WPM without looking in about 14 hours of training and use. The obstacle for adults is the old habit, not age.