If you didn’t pay attention in your high school typing class, you might be regretting it now. Hovering hesitantly over the keys with two fingers and poking away is a waste of time — not to mention it doesn’t look very professional. But don’t worry; like any other skill, you can improve.
Think of the time you could save if you upped your speed even by a few words per minute. To help you out, we’ve picked some free services that can improve your technique, accuracy and speed.
So, why not bookmark a few of the sites below, and the next time you have a few minutes to spare, instead of watching hiccuping cats on YouTube (
), invest some time in improving your productivity.
1. TypingMaster’s Typing Test
To begin, you need to assess your current typing skills in order to monitor your improvement and see how much you’re getting better over time. The best way to do this is with a quick typing test.
There are many sites that offer free typing tests, but we like TypingMaster’s version for its options in length of test, choice of topic to type about and the shareable results that you can post to Facebook (
).
2. TypingWeb’s Free Tutorials
After you have determined just how adept you are, it’s time to start improving and correcting all the bad keyboard habits you’ve been using. According to the accepted wisdom on typing, to touch type most efficiently, your hands should be placed over the keyboard in a particular way.
TypingWeb.com offers some comprehensive free tutorials to get you using the correct hand positioning, even at the beginner level. To start, you’ll learn which hand you should be using and when. Proceed to more advanced tutorials and practice sessions that utilize a combination of letters, numbers and symbols to get your fingers flying properly around the keyboard.
TypingWeb also offers a neat way to start your day — its “News Headline Exercises” will have you typing the top stories from Google News, Fox Sports or ABC, so it’s an ideal way to catch up on the headlines and improve your typing skills at the same time.
If you want to keep track of your progress, simply take advantage of the site’s free registration so you can save your work.
3. Sense-Lang’s Balloon Game
Once you know where your fingers should be, the next thing to do is know where the keys are. This way, you can type without removing your eyes from the screen and you’ll see the biggest boost in speed.
One fun way to do this is with an online game from Sense-Lang. Letters fall down the screen on balloons that you have to burst by hitting the correct key. It’s simple, addictive and a surefire way to get to know where the “K” key is without peeking.
4. Rapid Typing Zone’s TypeDown
Once you have your hand positioning down and feel comfortable knowing the location of every key, the next step is to improve your speed.
Practice, as with anything, is the key to lightning-fast typing skills. And sometimes a game can offer more excitement and incentive than day-to-day typing tasks.
TypeDown is a very minimalist race-against-time game that will get you typing a great selection of random words as fast as you can in order to stop the stack from piling up and hitting the top of the screen.
With some retro gaming effects, it adds a nice dash of urgency to really get your fingers flailing.
5. TypeOnline’s Number Pad Lessons
We aren’t forgetting the numerical side of things and have a service in mind made specially for anyone looking to improve on the number pad.
In addition to general advice on technique for typing on your keyboard’s number pad, TypeOnline offers eight free online lessons to help you improve your skills and speed on the right-hand side.
BONUS: Play TypeRacer!
Once you feel you’ve honed some serious typing skills, here is a fun typing-based web game where you can take on typists from around the globe or challenge your buddies to a type-off.
TypeRacer’s simple online game will randomly match you up live with another player. It will also provide you with a unique URL that you can share to type-race against friends, family or colleagues — it’s what we call good, clean fun!
More Productivity Resources from Mashable:
– 10 Killer Firefox Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts
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– 37 Productivity Tips for Working From Anywhere
– 10 Dead Simple Gmail Tips, Tricks & Shortcuts
– HOW TO: Use a Start Page to Stay OrganizedImage courtesy of iStockphoto (
), narvikk
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I need to improve my typing skills, thought i would post a link for some cool free typing courses
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