Guides / Improve your speed

How to improve your typing speed

Speed comes from accuracy, good habits and enough practice that you keep showing up. Here is what to focus on, and in what order.

1. Fix accuracy before speed

Every mistake costs you the wrong keystroke, the Backspace and the broken rhythm. Slow down until you are making very few errors, and let speed follow. If you only change one thing, change this.

2. Build consistent finger habits

Touch typing is a solid system, especially if you stare at the keys, but it is not the only route. Research from Aalto University found self-taught typists can match touch typists using fewer fingers. Fast typists tend to press each letter with the same finger every time, prepare the next keystroke early and keep their hands still.

3. Practice little and often

Short regular sessions tend to work better than one long one, because they are easier to keep up and easier to stay focused through. Stop when you start making careless mistakes.

4. Practice what you find hard

If you always slow down on capitals, numbers or punctuation, spend time on them on purpose. Varied text is harder than common words, and real writing is full of it.

5. Check your posture

Keep your wrists relaxed and your shoulders down, and take a break if anything aches. Tension makes you slower.

6. Make it something you want to do

The best practice is the kind you actually come back to. That is the idea behind Type Hunters. It has you typing varied phrases with capitals and punctuation under pressure, and it rewards clean typing: a clean attack fills your Rush meter far faster than one with mistakes. Browse other typing games too, and find the one that keeps you playing.

Measure your progress

Take our free typing test every week or two. A new text each time keeps you honest, and you can watch your speed and accuracy change.

How is WPM worked out?

WPM means words per minute, where one "word" is counted as five characters. Type Hunters takes your correct characters, divides by five and divides by your active time in minutes. Blocks and pauses count as active time, so your WPM in a Hunt will usually be lower than on a plain typing test. That is a good reason to compare yourself with other hunters on the leaderboard rather than with your typing test score.