My ambition at the time was to be a secretary. Of course, one of the main skills was to type, another skill used was shorthand and Dictaphone typing. Shorthand is probably not taught now as there are other fast ways of recording conversations, meetings and letters. 

Dictaphone typing or audio typing was a skill that needed to be mastered too. This is where the author of a document spoke into a Dictaphone machine and gave the secretary the tape to play back on her machine and type as she heard the voice. I say ‘her’ because this profession was mainly women back when I started work in the late 70’s. The skill was to get the foot pedal – which made the tape play – at the right speed. A skilled typist could type continuously while operating the foot control at just the right pace to keep up with her typing speed.

So, touch typing has been an extremely useful skill over the years. I would highly recommend you invest your time to learn how to do it. Luckily there are many free tools to use to teach you how to type. Have a look at www.typingclub.com – its free and fun to use.

The benefits: you can be faster at typing, quicker to notice a typing mistake, type almost as quickly as a person can speak and it helps you get your notes down in some sort of sensible order so that you don’t have to spend time re-thinking what you wrote down in a note pad.

Stay safe.

Carol

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