Prices have skyrocketed, if you can even find one (I’ve seen them going for more than $300 dollars).

News flash: It appears that the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 I have been using for a decade is out of production. If you can live such oddities, the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 is the best and most comfortable keyboard I’ve found. I warn you that it’s a USB keyboard for Windows PCs, so although everything works as expected, its Option keys have Windows icons, and its Command keys say “Alt.” It’s a “split” keyboard with bigger keys under bigger fingers, with those keys delivering the perfect amount of “bounce.” Plus, it has an integrated faux leather wrist-rest that makes it super comfortable for extended typing. It has been my keyboard of choice for more than a decade, and I try more keyboards than the average bear. To achieve such speed, I need my beloved Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. (For what it’s worth, I still type around 70 words per minute with close to 100% accuracy.) Step 2: Try a Different Keyboard The best and easiest way I know to improve your keyboarding skills is a typing training app for your Mac such as Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor ($25.99 at Or visit the Mac App Store and download (or buy) one of the myriad typing-instruction apps (search for typing).Īnother option is a free typing-instruction website such as TypingTest (free at which also offers free typing speed tests so you can benchmark your progress. And the faster and more accurately you type, the less time you’ll spend correcting typing errors. Put another way, improving your typing speed and accuracy will save you time every day forever. (words per minute), you’ll finish your writing tasks twelve times faster than hunting-and-pecking at five w.p.m. Macintosh (my first book) and have recommended it regularly ever since. I first recommended learning to type faster as a productivity booster in 1989 in Dr. I learned to type 60 or 70 words a minute without looking at the keyboard and have maintained that speed for three decades.

So, before I bought my first Mac, I decided to learn to touch-type using a hardbound typing instruction manual and an old electric typewriter my wife had in college. When I was in middle school, boys couldn’t take typing (or home economics) classes, and girls weren’t welcome in shop-metal, wood, or auto-classes. It made me sad because I get so much more work done in so much less time by typing faster and more accurately.

They couldn’t have been typing more than four words per minute. I recently saw someone young enough to know better hunt-and-peck typing on a MacBook Air.

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