“Road to 120 WPM: A Live Experiment in Flow, Consistency, and Learning in Public”.
Fast typing is actually slow typing (An Experimental Live Blog)
I picked up touch typing naturally while coding during my bachelor’s, without realizing it was a skill people deliberately train for speed and accuracy. When I noticed others posting about it on LinkedIn, I got curious and tried MonkeyType. To my surprise, I was already hitting 80+ WPM on short tests, and with a bit of practice, I climbed to 120, 130, 140, and even 160 WPM on 10-word sprints.
As my curiosity grew, I experimented with different test lengths. On a 15-second timer, I peaked at 122 WPM, and on a 30-second timer I hit 100 WPM. But then came the real challenge, the one-minute test. People began asking me, “Where’s your 100+ WPM on the one-minute counter?” That question sparked my inner “mad scientist.”
After analyzing my typing style and reviewing leaderboards, I discovered something fascinating: I tend to type in short, explosive bursts, which makes me very fast in sprints but disrupts flow in longer tests. In contrast, top performers, whether fast, slow, or somewhere in between, all shared one trait: consistency above 90%.
So I devised a hypothesis: what if I intentionally slowed down to maintain flow? Testing this, I reached 93 WPM on a one-minute test without pushing hard, matching my old peak of 92 WPM, but with far less strain. That confirmed my belief that deliberate pacing could unlock higher consistency and, eventually, much faster sustained speeds.
This blog is my live journal of that journey. I’ll share detailed screenshots, analysis of each test, and experiments with different strategies. My goal is to hit 100+ WPM consistently on the one-minute test, and eventually 120 WPM or more.
Let’s see how far consistency and curiosity can take me.
The stats on MonkeyType before testing the new typing style.
From now on, I will mostly try to type on a one-minute timer.
The Beginning of the New Typing Style, Which I call Flow Motion:
Typing in slow, steady motion for new finger remapping.
It seems like it is working. (The fastest and the most accurate below)
More coming soon. Let’s revamp the typing style.
After a week, you can see below that in the 77 WPM test, from the 39th second to the 49th second, the WPM touches the ceiling of above 110+ WPM. That is the constant flow I am aiming for. I did this test by initially typing very slowly and then gradually building up.
After doing this consistently, I would say that by forcefully typing slowly, I gradually learned how to pick up the flow without smashing the keyboard; hence, the consistency and the WPM are higher in the below-mentioned test. This is the first 100+ WPM that I have achieved after adopting this typing style.
Again, the numbers are repeated, but with low accuracy. Currently, my aim is to achieve above 95% accuracy. I believe that, at the cost of accuracy, I can build flow and then achieve 120 WPM with above 95% accuracy. Later, it will automatically adjust to reach 100% accuracy.
I did this test without caring about accuracy (I switched up my style here and there to understand more patterns), and you can see that the raw WPM, which is the calculation omitting the errors, is 114 WPM. Which is great. The last result I achieved this week is interesting to me, at least (attached at the end of this week: 108 WPM, raw 113 with 96% accuracy).
Reached 103 WPM, but this is not the end goal.
I tried typing after a long time on a 30-second timer to see what the effect would be on a short timer, and you can see that the raw WPM is touching 120+ WPM, with my fastest yet on the 30-second timer at 116 WPM.
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The previous one was 100 WPM. It seems like my fingers have stamina for the initial 15 to 30 seconds, and then when I try to maintain it, the flow gets inconsistent, maybe due to a lack of focus and tiredness.
Again, I have achieved 110 WPM (which is above my average) on the 30-second timer. This is getting interesting. The graph is smoother too, with fewer errors.
I tried to see the effects of slow typing on a 50-word test too and hit my fastest on it, writing 50 words in 26 seconds with 99% accuracy. The previous one was 100 WPM, as you can see on the chart.
Now, back again to the one-minute timer. Done, playing around.
In these two tests below, I felt no fatigue or tiredness, yet I was able to maintain 100+ WPM for one minute. It seems like my fingers are learning new patterns to type slowly and consistently because the results are repeating themselves, cleaner and smoother. To be very honest, the real fun is on the one-minute timer. When you enter the flow state, it feels amazing.
After a week of slow typing, these results amazed me because you can clearly see in the first 23 seconds, my typing flow is smoother than ever and it actually lingers around 120 WPM. Before I made four keystroke errors at the 23rd second, the graph is consistent. I have noticed that making errors actually hinders the flow, so maintaining the flow without making errors is the key, and that is why I am doing this experiment. I believe the high WPM is hidden inside the flow state and automatic typing.
This is the fastest I have scored on the one-minute timer.
On 3rd November 2025, I hit 120 WPM on a 30-second timer. It seems like the muscle memory has built up now.
—-
with noise-cancelling headphones:
a sporadic burst on a random morning before the class.
environment: cold,
fingers: warm.
keyboard: membrane.
I am stopping here. see you on a random morning again.
Find me @:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danish9980/
balochdanish9980@gmail.com
