Fast Fingers

Quote mode. Random-word tests train you to look at the next word; quote/sentence mode forces you to type chunks (the, and, ing) as units. I broke 100 within three weeks of switching to quotes-only practice. Daily 5-minute tests beat daily 1-minute ones for plateau-breaking.

Tactile, not linear. Linears (Reds, Yellows) are gaming-optimized because they're easy to spam, but you'll bottom out and get hand fatigue at typing speeds. Tactile switches (Browns, Holy Pandas, Boba U4Ts) give you a bump that signals actuation — your fingers learn the rhythm. Avoid clicky for office work unless you hate your coworkers.

Code has higher entropy per character. Prose has tons of common bigrams (th, he, in, er) that your fingers have memorized as chunks. Code has identifiers like `useEffect` and `__proto__` that don't fit any chunk pattern, plus shift-key dances for symbols. 40% slower is normal. The fix is volume — code through real codebases, not just one-line snippets.

Both. Low-travel laptop keys (especially butterfly/short-travel ones) cap most typists around 90–110 WPM because the bottoming-out feedback is so abrupt your fingers naturally pull punches. But 95 → 120 isn't free even with great hardware — you're at the point where typing volume + accuracy discipline matters more than keystroke peak speed. Try a decent tactile mechanical for a week. If you don't improve, the issue isn't the hardware.

If you've never used an ortholinear layout, expect to drop to 60% of your speed for 2–3 weeks regardless of which split you pick. Don't make the switch under deadline pressure. Vacation time or a quiet week is the right moment.

Realistic: 60–100 hours of focused practice over 3–4 months. Daily 20-minute sessions are the sweet spot — long enough to get past warm-up, short enough to maintain quality. Structure: 5 min warm-up on 30-second tests, 10 min on 1-minute tests with strict 97%+ accuracy floor (slow down if you can't hold it), 5 min on whatever specific weak-key drill the day's tests revealed. Skip days will set you back disproportionately — the muscle memory degrades fast at this level.