How many practice hours does it take to become a competent typist? How long will it take to start typing at 120 words per minute if you’re a beginner at the keyboard?

There’s no one answer to these questions. How fast and accurate a typist you’ll become depends on factors such as your determination, your resources, your knowledge of typing rules — and, of course, how much you’re willing to practice.

Here are 3 tips to help you become proficient at typing.

Track your progress frequently

It’s important to monitor your progress at frequent intervals. After a few sessions of typing practice, take an online typing test to check how much you’ve improved. Keep track of your best words-per-minute rate and next time, try to break it.

Tracking your typing efficiency will keep you motivated to practice more consistently and it will help you fine-tune your typing skills in no time.

Keep a public or personal journal

Do you have something to rant about? Keep an online journal or better yet, get your own blog. Update it frequently with whatever you’re passionate about. It can even be work-related, or devoted to the novel you’re working on. What matters is that you use it as a way of improving your typing skills. And who knows? Perhaps you’ll get an online international audience while you’re at it.

Don’t think of typing as a skill

Think of it as the means to an end. If you’ve got this attitude, you’ll approach typing confidently and won’t regard it as yet another task on the to-do list, right up there with cleaning the house. Of course you will need to learn about ergonomics, correct wrist placement, key-finger correspondence, monitor distance and other rules, but what’s almost equally important is to have fun while learning.

The initial training period to learn these rules is actually very short, and it’s possible to learn all the principles of touch typing in only a few hours. The rest is all practice. The more you practice, the more refined your typing efficiency will become.

So how do you not think of typing as a skill to be studied, or worse, a chore? By making it fun. Online chatting, online typing games, PC-based instant messaging, or IMing through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media give you ample space and time to practice. What’s more, you’re killing two birds with one stone by using this approach: you’re improving your typing skills and also communicating and networking with people!

With simple tweaks to your approach to typing you can become proficient in touch typing effortlessly and quickly, and get the skill you need.