Fundamental Keyboarding Skills are a must for modern-day wordsmiths and authors.

Achieving Fundamental Keyboarding Skills cannot be done overnight. Yet is essential that as writers, you are equipped with basic typing skills. This will greatly advance your career as a writer. This will also save you time and money because you will be able to edit and format your manuscripts without having to pay expensive proofreading and formatting services. In the meantime, check these 5 tips to help you gain fundamental typing skills.

Comfortability

They say that in everything you do, posture is the first step to achieving success- whether it’s sports or any other stuff that involves physical work. It is true with keyboard typing. There are two key points involved- proper upright position and how you position your wrist and elbows. Use a comfortable chair to help increase your focus level to execute typing efficiently. Another important factor is the way you position your hands, specifically your wrist and elbows. Positioning your elbows properly and avoid bending your arms upward or downwards will greatly help you type easier.

Board Scheme

We all know about the keyboard scheme and the starting position of the fingers (ASDF _ JKL;). For one to achieve fundamental typing skills, it is important to always return to the starting position of the fingers. The home row position is the most basic step in keyboard typing. While at first, it may seem difficult, you will learn eventually and appreciating this practice will help you type faster and easier along the way.

Slide Fingers

If you are now familiar with the keyboard, limit your movement to what is needed to press a specific key. Use only a specific hand and finger to strike a key and slide it back to the home row marking. It is important to keep both hands close to the base position. By doing so you do not only reduce the stress on your hands but also allow you to type faster. As for your ring fingers and little fingers, it might take a little while for you to master using them since they are considerably underdeveloped.

Avoid Looking 

Looking at the keyboard while typing can significantly reduce your typing speed. That’s the reason why tutors are always strict with this rule. Our brains are designed to adapt to things if we constantly and consciously exposed ourselves to it. As you type daily without looking at the keyboard, you will develop the skill to type effectively without peeking. Of course, no one is expected to master this skill at once. At the start, one might be allowed to peek once in a while but try your best not to look and in time you will get used to it.

Practice More

Nothing beats practice. Challenging yourself to execute proper posture and typing without looking at the keyboard coupled with constant practice is the only way to fundamental keyboarding skills. Experts say that an average of 30-minute practice typing daily will greatly boost your typing skills. Faster typing speed and accuracy should be your primary goals. You can set a phase and aim for higher typing speeds as you go along. Most people do not improve because they are stuck with their current comfort. You can only master speed and accuracy through constant practice. There is no shortcut to that.

If you visit the Denise Chambers website, you can do practice typing for free. Denise Rolanda Chambers is the author of the book Fundamental Keyboarding Skills: From the Typewriter to the Computer. You can also check her inputs and blogs on typewriting and other related skills.