Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is a major concern for millions of people who type during a large part of their workday. Web programmers, writers, data analysts, and many other office workers, scientists, and professionals will experience some discomfort in their hands and wrist after repetitive motions.

Even if you don’t type constantly, things like swimming, tennis, and weight lifting can cause CTS as well.

You can, however, avoid carpal tunnel syndrome by following these preventive practices.

Practice common sense

If you’re in a profession that makes you prone to CTS consider taking measures that will prevent this from happening to you. Any job where you use your hands and wrists extensively puts them at risk. Make sure you rest your hands and body enough and strengthen your wrists to avoid damaging them.

Optimize your workstation

It may be the job of your employer to make sure that you have a workstation that helps to prevent CTS and other repetitive stress injuries.

If this is not the case, take the matter into your own hands. Use ergonomic equipment like a keyboard pad, and take frequent breaks from repetitive work that puts your wrists and shoulders under a lot of stress.

Take care of yourself

Exercise and strengthen your hands and wrists in a way that doesn’t contribute to deterioration, but helps keep it at bay instead. The key thing to remember is that you’re looking for ways to exercise that avoid any extremes.

Being in overall good health will ensure you keep CTS at bay, and helps you to take prompt action when symptoms kick in.

Improve your posture

If you exercise regularly, it will help improve your posture, which is an essential aspect of successful CTS prevention. Are you following the experts’ recommendations for good posture when typing.

1) Your spine should rest against your chair along your mid-back.

2) Your shoulders and elbows should stay in a relaxed position.

3) Your wrists should remain in a horizontal position.

4) Your feet should either be on a footrest, or firmly touching the ground with the back of your knees forming a 90 degree angle.

5) Your screen should be at eye level to avoid strain on your neck and extra stress on your wrists and hands.

6) Your wrist should be lightly supported by a keyboard pad, but not rest heavily against it. Do not rest your wrists on the edge of your laptop.

Following all of these steps will help ensure that you minimize your risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

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Technology advances at a pace we can hardly keep up with.  The old sci-fi movie scenario where you could control everything around by pressing a button, typing a few keystrokes, or swiping a touchpad is no longer the realm of fiction – it’s a reality.

For many people, the demands required to cope with new technological advances is a cause of stress. The complexity of learning to use and make the most out of new technologies often makes people anxious and reluctant to integrate them in their professional and personal lives.

The inevitable question is this: how do we keep up with a constantly evolving world that’s becoming more and more tech-driven?

The answer is simple: we keep evolving, too.

As technology makes giant strides to improve our lives, we should be following its lead. If we want our lives to improve, we need to build the skills necessary for to take advantages of technology.

Build Your Tech Vocabulary

New technologies generally mean new words to learn. You need to understand the words and how to use them in order to be relevant and efficient in communicating with others. Building your vocabulary could help you understand more of the tech-based discourse you’ll find in most fields these days, even those that are not directly based in IT support and development.

Build Your Typing Skills

Keyboard-based devices are becoming more widespread. They already reign over the workplace, and are moving into more areas of the home.

You work on your desktop computer, watch movies on your tablet while commuting back home, and engage on social media through your smartphone while having dinner. Even if your typing skills are fairly weak, you will be still able to perform all these activities – you’ll just end up doing it in a counterintuitive, time-consuming manner.

Learning to touch type more efficiently is one skill that will help you cope better with technologies at home and at work. You will be able to work productively on any keyboard-based device, and do so  in less time. This will give you a sense of confidence and sovereignty over your technology. In other words, you’ll rule the device, instead of giving it power over you.

Read More, Read Often

Simply improving your typing skills and related vocabulary won’t suffice, however. There’s still a lot you can do in order to not just cope with technology, but actively leverage it to improve your life.

Start reading a lot of articles, blogs, and books on how new technologies work. Learn what the future could look like if scientists figure out ways to implement affordable technologies in our lives. Be one of the people who are “in the know” when it comes to new developments and new tech trends.

Technology has great potential, and there will always be new ways that it helps businesses grow and flourish. On a personal level, technology can enable people to capitalize on their skills and competencies in order to improve their lives.

Technology makes it possible for us to have responsive organizations: companies that are willing and able to adapt, revisit, and respond to a world that never stops changing and surprising us.

Don’t let technology intimidate you. Embrace its elegant beauty and stunning potential.

Yes, uncertainty and mistakes are part and parcel of using new technologies, but so is exhilaration and efficiency. Instead of running away from technology, try learning to use it. Experience the whole new world it makes available to you and you will soon wonder why on Earth you avoided it before.

Technology will first change how we work, and then the way we live. Just make sure you’re a competent and willing learner of technology, and it will be good to you!

Were you formally taught how to touch type in school, or are your typing skills a unique typing strategy that involves mostly your index fingers, while you peer down at the keyboard hunting for the right letters?

Strategies for typing instruction started at the same time the typewriter came on the scene. It was towards the end of the 19th century that the typewriter gained its full status as a reliable tool for communication and writing.

The first ever typing courses were (as you might expect) provided by typewriter experts, according to Yamada (1983). Roughly around 1880, typing courses were provided by typewriter manufacturers like Remington in an effort to establish the typewriter’s status as an essential technological aid in business.

Fast-forward 15 years into the 20th century, and you’ll find that public schools were starting to introduce typing in America’s high schools. Today, keyboarding is considered an occupational skill all students need to master.

Typing is a skill that boosts employment opportunities. However, at one point it was also considered a medium through which reading and writing could be taught. A study by Wood and Freeman (1932) explored how typewriters affect students’ literacy.

They discovered that students using a typewriter to write had a better reading capacity and improved spelling skills. What is more, these students regarded writing on a typewriter to be more enjoyable than their counterparts who weren’t writing and reading on a typewriter. At this time, typewriters were a technology that was experimentally introduced as educators wanted to see how it could positively affect learning.

In 1936, about seventy years ago, Colahan Wayne revealed in a paper that elementary-level typing classes had brilliant results for those being taught how to type — given the teacher was qualified and the class well-organized.

What’s more important is that educators showed a desire to integrate typewriters into other classes, like math and science, as a way of “technologizing” education. It’s something that we see today as well, with the computer and tablet now taking a front and center position in the classroom.

During the 50’s and 60’s typewriting was taught mostly in elementary schools, and there was a widely held conviction that typewriting skills might fast-forward a student’s acquisition of the English language — especially spelling. Through typing, students tend to become more aware of the forms that letter patterns take, especially the beginning and ending of words, as Bartholome W. Lloyd reported in his research, “Keyboarding/Typewriting in Elementary School.”

Studies in the 80s looked into what the most appropriate age is for teaching keyboarding skills to young students. While there was evidence that teaching keyboarding at the 3rd grade is an ideal time, a different study that looked into how responsive and efficient students who were being taught keyboarding skills at the 1st and 2nd grade revealed that these younger students are in fact equally capable of handling keyboarding and mastering the skill as 3rd graders are.

Literature published over the past fifty years points out the beneficial aspect of teaching touch typing in elementary school. In recent years, many students can either opt for a typing class in high school or receive typing instruction through an online course or software. However, while there’s an obvious need for students to master keyboarding, most schools currently focus on other skills and knowledge as their high priority.

Those priorities need to be shifted, given that education is becoming more tech-based than ever before. Keyboarding is a basic computer skill which needs to be taught early on, so that students can easily meet modern marketplace demand.

But apart from securing their future employment prospects, learning to touch type is fast becoming a basic skill for educational purposes – as necessary as being able to read, one could argue. With many classroom assignments and activities being carried out on computers, students are expected to have mastered touch typing. But how many 4th and 5th graders have had formal keyboarding classes at school?

Studies done in the last few decades show how state educational institutions and society as a whole don’t seem to realize the centrality of keyboarding in education, and how important this skill is for young students. 25 years ago it might have been sufficient to have your own hunt and peck touch typing method, but today typing speed and accuracy need to be advanced in order for a person to succeed at school and at work.

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Touch type your work and increase productivity with Typesy Now!

If you spend long hours at the computer, you’re getting the practice you need to be an expert touch typist, but you may also be increasing your risk of developing a repetitive strain injury (RSI), or other problems related to the muscles, tendons, and nerves in your shoulders and back and neck. In order to stay healthy while you type, remember to use these ergonomic tips that we explain in the Typesy training program:

a. Keep your head straight and facing forward, without tipping your head up or down. The screen should be in front of you and level with your eyes. Use a document holder to bring papers that you need to refer to up to the same level.

b. Make sure your back stays supported and straight. Don’t lean forward or backward when you type. Use a lumbar pillow to support the natural curve of your lower spine.

c. Let your arms fall naturally from your shoulders – you shouldn’t have to raise your shoulders to bring your hands to the keyboard, or force your arms down either. Your elbows should form a 90-degree angle so that your wrists are flat on the keyboard.

d. Your chair should provide support for your legs, with your thighs remaining horizontal to the ground and your lower legs bending 90 degrees at the knee, forming an L shape. Use a footrest if necessary to keep your legs in the proper position.

e. Don’t stress your eyes, which are just as important as your fingers for typing. Set up your workspace so that you have enough light to easily see the screen and documents, but angle the light sources so that there is no glare on the screen. Don’t set up your computer facing a window – there will be too much contrast.

f. If you use a mouse, make sure that you have it at the same level as the keyboard, and approximately at the same height. Try not to move your arm too far to the side when using the mouse.

g. Finally, don’t forget to take a break every now and then! Even if you have a lot of typing to do, get up and stretch regularly, look away from the screen to refocus your eyes, and give yourself a quick hand massage to relax and refresh your muscles.

Do you know how to touch type? I mean, are you really good at it?

If you are, then keyboarding can be your ticket to a good full time or part time job. Many entry-level jobs require touch typing skills, so improving your touch typing won’t hurt your career, no matter what field you want to work in.

There are numerous jobs you can easily get if your typing performance is above average.

Administrative/ Executive Assistant

50-60wpm

At this typing level you can get an administrative assistant position. Of course, you will probably also need other technological and managerial skills – think about brushing up your skills in language(s), Internet and Microsoft Office knowledge, or CRM and other common software products.

Responsibilities of this job include creating documents and reports, filing, customer support, and administrative support such as setting up meetings or client appointments. The position can even include social media account management.

Editor / Language Specialist

60-80wpm

At this typing speed and with a passion for language you could get a job as an editor at a publishing house, a magazine, an online newspaper, or any other print or digital media agency. The proliferation of digital media companies that publish their own content makes editors a sought-after profession these days.

Your daily duties will include various levels of editing and proofreading of books, articles, white papers, and all other sorts of content. You need to have an eye for detail and good typing speed and accuracy, so that you can both spot and correct grammar and spelling mistakes.

Medical Transcriptionist

80-100wpm

If you have advanced typing skills you could become a medical transcriptionist. The profession is always short of staff and if you’re into medicine it could be the perfect entry level job for you.

A medical transcriptionist transcribes medical and legal recordings of busy doctors. While you need to be familiar with the doctor’s specialty, the profession doesn’t require any other skills, other than good typing skills and excellent language use.

Data Entry Worker

80-90wpm

Data entry is a non-demanding job you can easily excel at if you have above average touch typing skills. It can be a bit tedious and uninspiring, so you may not want to make it your career, but as an entry level job it could work great for getting you exposed to corporate culture. You can become a freelance data entry clerk too, working from the comfort of your own home, if the corporate world doesn’t sound very appealing to you.

Legal Assistant

60wpm

At 60wpm you can become a legal secretary or paralegal. You will get to draft legal documents, do extensive research, and get to work in an exciting environment with challenging cases.

As a college student, and during your first steps into the job market, touch typing could be the key to landing you your first well-paying job.

If you want to improve your typing accuracy and speed you can try practicing with Typesy™, a typing tutor that makes learning to keyboard a breeze thanks to its step by step video tutorials and customizable typing practice.

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Are you a collector of time assets, or do you find yourself always in debt? Thinking about time as an asset or debt is a unique way of looking at productivity. People often think of productivity as a short-term goal. They’re focused on how to save 10 minutes in the morning by preparing breakfast the night before, or how to shrink a boring office meeting down to 20 minutes only. Although these and other similar strategies are efficient in saving people a couple hours per month, they miss a valuable point. Looking at short-term one-time solutions like this is shortsighted, because in focusing on them we are not taking into consideration how certain actions can save time not just in the present, but also in the future.

When we’re thinking of how to be more productive, how to fit more projects in the twenty-four hours we only get each day, we should be looking at strategies that will save us time for many, many years to come.

“Time as Asset”  (also referred to as Time Asset and Time Debt) is a concept coined by Patrick McKenzie. This approach helps us understand how valuable some productivity-boosting skills truly are.

When you think of ways you can be more productive, it’s best to try and think of more long-term strategies. For instance, it makes more sense to increase your reading speed than it does to skip reading an important report. Increasing your reading speed is an asset; it’s a time asset that will save you many hours over the course of the coming years.

Time Asset: Keyboarding  – How to Cut Down on Typing Time

One way to be more productive in the long run is to improve your typing speed and accuracy. This will substantially reduce your typing time because you will no longer have to look down at your keyboard to locate “C” or to find the shortcut “Ctrl+X”.

Ultimate Typing™ is a program that will help you pay off your typing time debt and help you increase your typing time assets. Over the years, you will save hundreds of hours of typing, just by committing yourself to improving this one skill today.

Time Asset: Reading – How to Cut Down on Reading Time

We read for work, for pleasure, for education, for keeping up with the world. One time asset you should be looking at investing in is reading. Reading efficiently means you can stay on top of developments and new knowledge, and you can be more efficient at any reading-related project, from doing research for a report, to putting together a white paper for a new software release from your company.

By improving your reading speed you will be able to save hundreds of reading hours because bad habits like sub-vocalization and regression won’t be slowing you down. Consider how 7 Speed Reading™ might be the key to improving your productivity, today and for as long as you live.

Time Asset: Language  – Minimize your Language Time Debt

If your spelling and vocabulary are poor, then your productivity more than likely suffers from it. A person with an extended vocabulary and excellent spelling skill is more efficient at writing.

eReflect’s user-friendly software products Ultimate Spelling™ and Ultimate Vocabulary™ help you improve on these two seminal language skills. When you master these skills, you won’t have to rely on thesauruses, dictionaries, and spellcheckers every time you put together a report or have to write your next pitch.

Time as Asset is an excellent way to conceptualize productivity. It takes into consideration a valuable aspect of productivity: that productivity is  an ongoing goal we must think of  as a continuum, rather than a one-time thing we conquer one task at a time.

Social media has become a strategized corporate priority. Businesses of all sorts and sizes are jumping onto the social media marketing bandwagon, some because everyone else is doing it, others because they’ve truly realized the power social media has to offer.

For social media marketing to work, a solid plan has to be in place. Blindingly engaging in social media doesn’t lead anywhere. How are you going to quantify the success of your social media marketing if you don’t know what your milestones are?

Having a social media plan ensures you can engage with your company’s followers, create awareness and visibility around your brand, and hopefully turn more visitors and followers into loyal customers, thereby increasing sales.

Some questions you need to answer for your social media campaigns to be effective are basic. How do you write effective tweets? What’s the best time to post on Facebook? Do you really need to use Instagram too?

Once you’ve got these answers and a content marketing editorial calendar, you need to take into account the following questions:

Should you ever self-promote?

If you have a blog post you want to tweet about, you don’t just create promotional tweets. This is the number one mistake businesses make: using social media as marketers only, and not as end users.

To appeal to your Twitter followers you need to make them feel they’re on the same page as you are, sharing the same concerns and the same tastes. They need to feel you are sharing something because you care, not because your primary goal is to promote your blog and have more people read and comment on it.

That’s why you need to be careful when you repurpose content for social media. You don’t make it “pitchy,” you simply make it useful and shareable.

For instance, don’t say, “Hey! I just published my new post on how to increase productivity. Please share and comment if you like it!”

Try this instead: “Productivity is a state of mind you need to embrace. Are you guilty of these 3 sabotaging habits? Read more here.” A teaser tweet like this doesn’t promote, it educates; it doesn’t sell, it helps.

This is the difference between promotional content and educational content. Your social media marketing should mostly revolve around educational, informative content your users will find helpful and will be eager to engage with.

Do you A/B test your strategy?

What works for a multinational brand won’t work for your 5-employee company. The best way to see what works for you is to test various types of content. Experiment with copy, with audio and video, with infographics, with sweepstakes, and so forth.

See what engages your readers the most. What is making them share and comment, and what leaves them indifferent?

You cannot predict what will work, you need to A/B test it to find out – and then adapt your strategy according to the results.

Do you offer quality content, all the time?

You might waste a lot of money on a promising social media campaign only to realize it didn’t have the expected results. The most common culprit is poor content quality and lack of coherence and direction.

Don’t be present and active on every social network out there, because you’ll be spreading yourself too thin. Pick no more than 3 social networks to engage with, and make sure you give your full attention to your communities there.

Instead of wasting time and resources on being present on all social media, make it mission to offer high-quality, engaging content in just two or three channels. This way your followers will instantly realize you’re dedicated and will be coming back to engage with your brand.

Focusing on only a few social media outlets also has the added benefit of helping to ensure the quality of your content. The less you’re consumed with, the better the outcome.

Ultimately, for a social media marketing campaign to work, it’s all about undivided attention and valuable content that’s fresh. Good luck!

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Keyboarding is omnipresent, and yet many people fail to realize it. We touch type to RSVP a wedding invitation or to play games on Facebook. We touch type a work report and we touch type to chat and interact with online friends.

Touch typing is a tech skill that will be increasingly important in the coming years – so important that people lacking this skill will have a harder time keeping up with all the technological breakthroughs that will soon take place.

For this reason, it’s important that children are given the opportunity to formally and efficiently learn how to touch type. Typing in schools has unfortunately not given the due attention it deserves. Given its central role in any and all other computer-based class and skill learning, it’s puzzling why the average school curriculum doesn’t already include keyboarding classes.

Even if your local school doesn’t provide the tools, with the help of typing software, your child can learn how to type correctly, accurately, and quickly. This will give your child an edge they will be able to rely on throughout their lives.

–   A proficient touch typist saves hundreds of minutes each week on touch typing based tasks, such as homework, projects, research, or writing up essays.

–   A child that touch types quickly and accurately is more confident in dealing with keyboard-based tasks and school assignments because the lack of typing skills doesn’t get in the way.

–   A good touch typist who learned the right keyboarding techniques early in life will continue improving on their typing performance, because every touch typing activity will be a touch typing practice, helping them to constantly improve upon their typing performance.

–   Dyslexic children find it easier and less frustrating to touch type rather than write out homework by hand, so keyboarding can play a crucial role in ensuring that no child stays behind in class.

–   Touch typing equips children with a skill that will come in handy in college and later on in their careers. Keyboarding activities permeate all aspects of our lives, from education and entertainment to social interaction.

–   Efficient touch typists are happier with their typing competency because it leads to increased productivity, creative breakthroughs, and early task completion.

Teachers and parents who wish to give students this invaluable skill can do so through readily-available typing software. While it is possible to teach typing without a typing program, using a well-designed software product offers benefits to both instructors and students. A good program provides a structured learning experience for the student which both accelerates the learning process and makes it less challenging and more rewarding, by offering typing practice in the form of typing games as well as a range of tools for further enhancing the keyboarding experience. Teachers will enjoy the fact that the lessons have been prepared for them, leaving them more time to devote to students in the classroom. With top-rated typing software, everyone benefits.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Typing blog.

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