[hoorayimhelping]

Context here matters. Why are you trying to increase your typing speed?

Do you hunt and peck, and you want to type faster? Do you feel you "don't type very fast," compared to some kind of standard? Are you competing in typing competitions?

If you hunt and peck, your best course of action is to break your habit and learn to type on homerow keys.

If you feel you don't type fast enough using homerow keys, your best bet is just to type more. Perhaps think out a sentence, then test yourself for how fast you can type it versus just typing things off the cuff. I find that when I know what I want to type (e.g. I know a sentence I want to say), I can type blazingly fast, versus typing words as they come out of my brain, which is much slower.

[richajak]

I agree on the context issue as I have been surviving on my simple typing skills for drafting business reports and writing codes. One trick that I use to speed up is by using muscle memory, in the sense that I will estimate exact position and distance that my fingers have to move. I am comfortable using Thinkpad keyboard, however I would be at lost if I have to use other laptops.

As for speed of typing vs mind, I use simple words that requires less characters to express my initial idea. I will gradually revise my sentences to elaborate or simplify it. Perhaps it is my workaround to overcome my shortcoming. Coming up with something to write or code is my bottleneck.

I learned about traditional typing skill using mechanical typewriter. However, I am more at ease with my 1-1 finger movement (1 index finger plus thumb on each hand) on my laptop.