I recently polled some friends for their favorite time-savers. I was surprised to see “learning to type” as one of the responses — and it was repeated more than once. After a moment’s reflection, I had to agree.

I taught myself to type from a book, banging on an old Royal manual while stationed on San Clemente Island in the Navy. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself. In the twenty-five years I have worked with computers, it has probably saved me hundreds, if not thousands of hours.

There are some cool products you can buy and/or download to learn typing. I think we have Mavis Beacon loaded on the family PC. But if you want to try something quick and free… check out TypingWeb.

There are different levels from beginner to advanced. If you register, you get to save your progress through the course. I highly recommend learning to type as an essential career skill for anyone who is, well, breathing. People change jobs 3 to 5 times, after all and it’s hard to imagine any job these days where touch-typing would not help you sooner or later.