Skip to content

How I Type REALLY Fast (156 Words per Minute)

2020-08-18 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 15:33 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Productivity and time) · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: His own numbers, Sponsor segment present

Ali, who types about 155 words per minute on a good day, says fast typing makes you more productive and creative, and gives his tips: shortcuts for fixing mistakes, practice on 10FastFingers and Keybr, a keyboard-first approach with Alfred, never looking at the keyboard, the resting position, typing loudly and treating it as a game.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why improve your typing speed: impressing people, speed at the computer, typing at the speed of thought

  • ★★ Ali says anyone can become at least twice as productive just by improving their typing speed, which he calls one of his superpowers. (overstated) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali types around 155 words per minute on a good day and around 140 when he feels sluggish. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali says the average typing speed is around 45 words per minute and that, according to Google, a professional typist needs around 80. — 00:00:29 · Google
  • ★ Ali says the biggest compliment he has had in two years as a doctor is that he types really fast. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Since everything is done on a computer, Ali says, the closer the computer responds to your thinking, the more productive you are, in essays, browsing and messaging alike. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Ali says the closer his typing speed gets to his thinking speed, the more creative he becomes. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Ali says a first draft, of a blog post, essay or video script, should be a brain dump written without stopping to think too much. — 00:02:08
  • ★ Asked how he finds time for his YouTube channel, blog, newsletter and podcast while working as a doctor, Ali answers that he is taking a break from medicine right now, and that apart from his general productivity advice, typing super fast makes a big difference. — 00:02:08

00:02:58 — Tip one: keyboard shortcuts for fixing mistakes

  • ★★ Ali's general typing tip: whenever you find yourself pressing Backspace more than twice, there is probably a better way of doing it. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ To fix a typo Ali uses Option and Backspace on a Mac, or Control and Backspace on Windows, to delete a whole word instead of pressing Backspace repeatedly. — 00:03:38 · keyboard navigation, Microsoft Windows
  • ★ On a Mac, Ali says, Command and Backspace deletes an entire line. — 00:04:21 · keyboard navigation
  • ★★★ Ali's second tip for typing faster is to do typing tests on 10fastfingers.com semi-regularly. — 00:04:21
  • ★ Ali discovered 10FastFingers when he was about 13; he is 26 now. (hedged) — 00:04:21

00:04:37 — Tips two and three: practising on 10FastFingers and Keybr

  • ★★ In eighth grade Ali typed between 70 and 80 words per minute; doing tests on 10FastFingers a few times a month, his speed has improved linearly since. — 00:04:54
  • ★★ Ali's friend Angus went from about 65 to around 95 words per minute in a few months by practising on 10FastFingers for about 10 minutes once a week, about a 50% increase. — 00:05:23
  • ★★ Ali's third tip is keybr.com, which works out which letters you struggle with and trains you on them more often; he uses it occasionally for those weak spots. — 00:07:07
  • ★★ Ali prefers 10FastFingers for general practice and testing because it uses actual words, while many of Keybr's words are not real. — 00:07:07
  • ★★★ To improve typing speed and productivity at a computer, Ali advises moving away from the mouse to using the keyboard for absolutely everything. — 00:07:38 · keyboard navigation

00:07:50 — Tip four: use only the keyboard, with Alfred

  • ★★ Ali does not even show his Mac's dock: he opens every app with Alfred, pressing Command and Space and typing the app's name. — 00:08:07 · Alfred
  • ★★ Ali likes that Alfred, unlike Spotlight, automatically searches Google for anything typed that is not an app or a file. — 00:08:57 · Alfred, Google
  • ★★ Whenever Ali finds himself using the mouse in an app, he googles its keyboard shortcuts; switching to a keyboard-first mentality around 2012 or 2013 helped improve his typing speed. — 00:09:26 · keyboard navigation

00:09:56 — Tips five to eight: never look at the keyboard, resting position, make noise, treat it as a game

  • ★★★ To learn touch typing, Ali advises never looking at the keyboard: even if you are slow, go slower without looking, unless you make a mistake and really have to. — 00:09:56
  • ★★ Ali now forbids himself to look at the keyboard and corrects mistakes without looking, since correcting mistakes is an important part of typing faster. — 00:10:27
  • ★★ Ali advises always returning your fingers to the resting position on A, S, D, F and J, K, L, semicolon, found by feeling the bumps on F and J, like the rest position on a piano. — 00:10:27
  • ★★ Ali has always found he types faster when typing loudly and slower when trying to be quiet, and suggests viewers experiment with making noise. (hedged) — 00:11:25
  • ★★ Ali advises treating typing speed as a game and a skill you keep improving. — 00:12:08
  • ★★ Ali is trying to reach 200 words per minute; his next step is to use his left pinky, which he now reserves for Shift, more often. — 00:12:08

00:13:15 — Bonus tip: the productivity equation

  • ★★ Ali's productivity equation: productivity equals useful output divided by time, multiplied by the fun factor; typing speed is only one part of being productive. — 00:13:44

00:14:13 — Skillshare sponsor read and sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 10FastFingers · Alfred · keyboard navigation

Also: Anki · Google · Keybr · Microsoft Windows · productivity equation · Skillshare classes · Spotlight

Also centred on 10FastFingers: How I Manage my Time as a Doctor + YouTuber - 9 Time Management Tips

Replied to by

← Previous: Study with Me - Hustle & Chill · Next → The Second Brain - A Life-Changing Productivity System