Okay, so you didn’t take a typing class in school. You can’t “touch-type,” or type without looking at your keys. Or maybe your skills need a tune-up.

Maybe like most people, you figured “way back then” that in your career you’d always have a secretary to do typing for you. But now, since you became a real estate agent and must type many things yourself, you groan internally every time you have to “hunt and peck” your two-fingered way through some document or letter.

Worse yet, with the increasing demands of web marketing, you know that you are going to have to handle perhaps scores of e-mail messages every week.

Sadly, this problem won’t go away. What to do? You have little choice. For maximum efficiency, you should learn how to touch-type. Or type better.

How To Gain Typing Skills

There’s both good and bad news. The good news is that most people, in a single typing class at a junior college or evening adult education course, can learn to touch-type reasonably well. In fact, if you are like most adults, just that one course may give you a typing rate of perhaps 25-40 words per minute. And this is more than adequate for most demands agents face.

You can also teach yourself through use of “learn to type” software available in local retail or online stores. Such software “walks” you through each step, providing exercises that cause you to quickly “know” where each key is on the keyboard.

Online Sources For Learning

Many online firms and universities offer typing programs. Some employ multi-media techniques or a “game” approach to make the learning more interesting. So don’t rule out a program just because it seems designed for kids. Want to know the history of the modern keyboard? See: http://infinity.ccsi.com. And here are a few online learn-typing-related sites to check out:

• Free and Shareware List
• Beyond.Com’s List
• Individual Software, Inc.
• Dyslexic.Com.
• Basic Online Course
• Mario Teaches Typing
• Herzog Keyboarding
• TypeQuick
• Chinese Typists

Books

You can find excellent “self-teaching” books, audiotapes, videos and CDs using well-proven techniques for gradually building your skills. The best way to make your selection is by visiting Amazon Books online at http://www.amazon.com, or Barnes and Noble Books and search for the key words “learn typing” or “learn to type” or “typing”

The bad news is that you have to take time out of your usual routine to practice your skills in order to develop them. If you enroll in a school or private course, you need to religiously attend all your classes and do your assigned homework. No kidding. This is one skill where your initial grasp of the basics (where the keys are located, which finger to use for which key, etc.) is all-important. Those memory grooves that you’ll form between brain and fingers need to become deeply etched as soon as possible. But you’ll be amazed how fast that happens---if and only if you apply yourself. What does that mean? It means just doing exactly what the instructor tells you with nothing left out. Best of all, unlike learning about real estate laws, you only have to learn this once. After that, your skills can only get better.

What do we recommend? We say take a college or adult education day or night course. Just be sure to pick a meeting time that you are sure that you can always meet. Why a course? Because if you’re like us, you need an instructor to keep you on track. Remember that you only have to learn it once and then afterwards each e-mail message that you send the rest of your career will remind you of the terrific gift that your personal rigor once gave to you.

Published: March 21, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .