What I learnt from regularly practising touch-typing.
Hello, I am Shem Opiyo, currently an apprentice at Tunapanda Institute. I have been in the organization for the past one year and I am humble enough to say that the institute has taught me a lot in terms of tech, business and design. But one of the best skills that I have been focusing on is typing. I’m really happy and grateful for the knowledge and skills that I’ve learnt from the institution.
Firstly, I would like to say that typing is neither hard nor easy. It depends on an individual’s attitude towards it. Once you change your perspective and start searching for the positive sides of things, everything becomes easy. Also, this eliminates failure from the equation — there are only lessons to be learnt.
I never dedicated my time to practice typing until I joined Tunapanda Institute. I have been able to acquire knowledge and skills towards this, and I would really say it’s not quite easy but it started with my positive attitude towards it. I would really say this knowledge is very important to me. One reason being able to types faster, for example, when I am using a computer in case I am required to write a document, I use less time to complete writing the document. The other reason which might sound funny is, I don’t have to look at each letter on the keyboard when I am typing. It is said that practice makes perfect and I would say that it is regularly practised that I have been doing towards typing.
At first, I was taught to place my fingers in the home row (which has the colours purple and orange as shown in the picture above). It means while you practice typing you should not remove your hands on the home row.
Home rows are the keys “A” to “;” as shown in the diagram above. The left pinky finger lies in the A key followed by ring finger, middle finger, and then the index finger. In the right hand, you have to place your index finger on the “J” key as shown above followed by the middle finger on “K” key, ring finger on “L” key and then the right pinky finger should be placed on the “;” key. The thumb fingers, on the other hand, should be placed to space bar key as shown below by the blue colour.
I struggled enough while I was still a trainee at Tunapanda Institute, but at the moment I would say I’m not struggling that much but I am trying to perfect myself majorly on the speed and accuracy.
For sure, now I have the capability to type at least 60 words in a minute with a minimum of 98% accuracy, but my aim is even to be able to type more than 80 words, maybe 100 words. Compared to the first time when I started typing, there is really a huge difference.
To wrap everything up, there is never something that cannot be achieved. You only need to have a positive mind (growth mindset) towards achieving your targeted goal(s). If I would have had a negative attitude towards typing, I wouldn’t have reached this far and I will keep on practising and I hope to be one of the fastest typists not only in Kenya but in the entire world.
