Which Should You Focus On First in Typing: Accuracy or Speed

When you’re first learning to touch type, it can all seem overwhelming: it’s a whole new world of muscle memory and patterns and rhythms to teach your fingers. After a while, though, a junction will become clear to you: You can focus on attaining perfection in accuracy or you can focus on typing as fast as is humanly possible—but you likely won’t be able to do both.

Which, then, is more important? 

Let’s talk about accuracy. After all, consider this: If you’re typing some one hundred and fifty words a minute, that’s great — but if your copy is riddled with errors and every third word is horribly misspelled, then that’s going to get you nowhere. 

More practically, it’ll take you just as long (or longer) to go back and fix all of your mistakes than it would have taken you to just have typed a bit slower and made sure it was right the first time! 

Speed will come with familiarity, but it’s likely a good idea to start slow and make sure that your words are written the way you want them to be. Here are a few ways to work on improving accuracy in your typing: 

Learn Proper Technique: There are many ways to type, but there is one way to type that is considerably faster than the rest! For example, don’t type exclusively with your two index fingers when there’s a much easier way to learn using all ten of your digits. It’ll take some time to do, but learning the right way to type is the first step in being both quick and accurate in your typing. 

Find a Fun Way to Practice: Although typing is almost considered a ubiquitous skill, you do have to teach yourself how to do it — and that involves a certain amount of practice. However, if you don’t want to practice, you’re probably not going to do it! There are many online games you can play to practice your typing skills—for example, TypeRacer. Have fun!

Make Sure your Keyboard is In Good Shape: Even the best typist needs a good keyboard! If one of your keys is broken, you’re not going to be able to get much done. Making sure that your keyboard is in good shape is crucial for being able to get your work done properly.

Reward Yourself For Your Accomplishments! Make micro-goals and meet them! For example, consider making a goal of typing one full paragraph with no typos. Once you’ve met that, go play a game or take a break—then come back and write two full paragraphs perfectly.

When you’re typing, it may seem like a great idea to type as quickly as you possibly can — but when words are the media, accuracy is actually key. It doesn’t matter what your words per minute number is if no one can understand you! Therefore, work to improve your accuracy first. Speed will come with time. 

Learn touch typing the right way with Typesy!