Getting Good at Typing in One Week

How I Jumped From 80 to 100 WPM in Just 7 Days:

I spent months stuck at 80 WPM until I discovered targeted drills that finally broke my plateau. Here’s exactly what I did to jump to 100 WPM within one week.

Before getting into the drills, there are some important notes.

Typing ≠ Training:

We are typing constantly for emails, code, and chats, but repetition alone doesn’t build speed. If you’re stuck, you might not be practicing effectively. To get significant results you need deliberate practice.

Deliberate Practice Checklist:

• Clear Goal: Define what WPM or accuracy you’re targeting.
• Specific Focus: Identify and target key skills and areas of weakness.
• Instant Feedback: Use tools that immediately highlight your errors.
• Stretch Zone: Exercises slightly beyond your comfort level.

Just hammering Monkeytype repeatedly isn’t enough. The difference comes from focused, intentional drills.

Layout Reset: Potential Shortcut

Switching your keyboard layout is an optional step that might not be at all beneficial for your situation, but it potentially could be a huge help.

• Who: If you have deeply ingrained bad muscle memory that is holding you back. Such as pressing keys with the wrong fingers.
• Why: Learning a new layout or style requires redeveloping muscle memory. This is a perfect opportunity to correct bad habits and come back stronger.

While this step is not included in my one week time frame, I recognize it was an important part of my journey. I went from a traditional staggered QWERTY to a split columnar QWERTY keyboard. This allowed me to fix my incorrect finger usage.

I am NOT suggesting that any specific keyboard layout or style will help improve your speed, but rather the act of adjusting to ANY keyboard layout or style might help you correct bad habits.

The Best Drills For 80 -> 100 WPM

1 Rolling Keys

• What it is: Pressing several keys at nearly the same time.
• Why it works: Allows you to type faster than a press-release-press technique.
• How to run it: Try to press the keys at the “same time” with only a slight delay. In the beginning you might have to pause before the word for a moment and plan your roll pattern.
• Metrics: Making less mistakes. Pause time between words goes down.

2 “Master Difficulty”

• What it is: Making any mistake will cause you to fail the test, you need 100% accuracy.
• Why it works: Forces rapid error recognition and correction, dramatically reducing sloppy mistakes.
• How to run it: Set Monkeytype difficulty to master. Do NOT glance at the half‑finished WPM and mash restart. The only score that matters is a clean, full‑length run. When the test kicks you out, recognize your mistake, then restart.

• Metrics: Finish the test without failing.

3 Look-Ahead Vision

• What it is: Practice reading ahead multiple words while typing the current one.
• Why it works: Removes the delay between reading and typing.
• How to run it: Monkeytype “read-ahead” modes that hides the words.
• Metrics: Can read ahead one or two words from what you are typing.

Combined Drill:

After some time intentionally practicing each, combining all of those drills into one in the Monkeytype settings will give huge results.

Conclusion:

Jumping from 80 to 100 WPM in a week is achievable with focused, deliberate practice. Try these drills and see the results firsthand!