I need to improve my typing (speed); any helpful tips that worked for you?

Practice, practice, practice. There’s really nothing else that can improve typing speed beyond, well, typing!

If you enjoy games, maybe some of these would be an enjoyable way to practice typing with a bit of fun.

http://www.typingtest.com/

Awesome variety of topics to chose from. Helped me in College when i got bored.

Instant Messaging as a teenager boosted my typing speed. Just keep practicing, I don’t find those online tests very useful. That’s just me, though.

Robotic arms ? other than that use your keyboard more

Practice. Find some of those stupid typing games and just practice playing, going for the high score.

Please note, just because I call them stupid doesn’t mean they don’t work. As games, I find them ridiculous. As tools to learn to type faster while still maintaining accuracy, they’re great.

Well for starters, you can throw out any sort of mechanical logic behind your interaction with a keyboard. The way our standard QWERTY keyboards are laid out is a result of streamlining typewriters so that the letter hammers didn’t collide.

So we’re stuck with the keyboard the way it is, but it’s easy to get used to if you play with it. If you have practical reasons to type (like starting a blog, posting on Fluther, or writing emails to friends and family), then spend as much time typing with those things. If there’s not much typing fodder out there in those veins, then Open up an MS Word or notepad document, grab a book, and start copying it by typing.

Most importantly: STOP LOOKING AT THE KEYS. Watch the screen, no matter what.

Side topic:

Interesting article explaining how the so-called superiority of the DVORAK keyboard over QWERTY is just a myth.

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Myself, I use a bastardized combination of touch typing and personally memorized finger placement. I can touch type but am actually markedly faster using my own convention.

I do think that the hours of practice I put into touch typing helped improve my speed quite a bit.

Some say that you shouldn’t look at the keyboard when you type – personally I find LOOKING at it helps more.. Contact employment agencies in your area and see if they can offer you free tpying lessons/courses/tips. They are well-versed in making the most of people’s skills.

The only thing that will improve your typing speed is just doing it. As much as possible, every day.