Hi folks, today I’m going to share whit you, what I’d experienced on my journey to touch typing and maybe some of you will feel inspired to also quire that skill. Inspiration can be pretty powerful. So what inspired me? My work and the things I’m loving to craft. I craft software. I love it.
But that was not the only reason. The keyboard is a essential part of my daily live, writing emails, researching stuff, finances and coding are the majority of them. It came to my mind that, if learned that skill, I could reduce the required time on boring, tedious tasks and also increase the output on the fun things. I think, that writing in general isn’t very efficient at all. I can imagine at least one other way, but we are not going down this path today. So back to touch typing.
Where and how did I start?
I found a webpage where you could make a course, free of charge and the free version was enough for me to get started. It began with the simple things like ffjjffjfjf then fdjkdk and so on until you’ve covered all the letters on your keyboard. That was the hardest part. I spend each day at least ten minutes practicing in total, some times in small burst like one or two minutes and that was enough. I changed my routines. Instead of directly visiting YouTube, I made detour trough the typing page and gave it a few tries. After a few days I caught myself giving it more an more tries. It was like a game. You had short feedback loops and that lead me to that sweet state of mind of: “ok, one more try…” and that state is wonderful. It’s a mystical place where time gets drawn in like in black hole. You forget time, you just live and you are improving on whatever you’re doing in that moment. In that particular case, it was the touch typing which got improved. And that was very motivating. Seeing yourself improving can be a huge motivation driver.
The Motivation
In my experience, starting something new is easy, staying Motivated even when it gets hard and the progress stagnates is another thing. I kept my motivation alive with very short feedback loops, and I didn’t judge myself to much. Frustration can be a motivation killer. In certain cases it’s possible to convert that frustration in Motivation but I’m not completely sure if that’s really healthy in the long term. So I kept my expectations low, was happy about every gain I made and didn’t judge myself when my progress stagnated or even fell back. I just kept the regularity of the whole practice thingy.
Another observation was, not to limit yourself in form of a finnicky preparation. Try to avoid obstacles. If there is a thing, between you and the thing you actually want to do, then in a moment of low motivation chances are that it wont be done at all. So it has to be as direct as possible.
After memorizing the letter locations
It took me around two Weeks to memorize the location for most of the letters on the keyboard, I was ready to start practicing on a very neat webpage called MonkeyType.com and I loved it. Instead of writing strings of letters, which didn’t made any sense like lkjh and uyiop, I moved to chains of repeating words which is the default setting of that website. I got 12 words per minute(WPM). I forced myself to write slow and precise, learning to type with mistakes leads to unlearning making mistakes and backspace is your enemy. Keep that in your mind. Making a mistake, going to the backspace and the pressing the right key takes time. You don’t want that. That monkey page was perfect for me, because a try is 30 seconds by default and if you desire 10 second or whatever you can do that, no login required. So there are a lot of timeframes where you can fit that small amount of time in. Something is loading? have a type. Came back from your brake? Guess what? Have a type. Keep a tab open and hit those keys, get your serotonin with minimal time investments. So I got into the state of: “Oh yes, let’s fire in those keys and have look if I could get new personal best”, and after another two weeks I got my first 30WPM. Oh, that felt so good, really good. Then it stagnated for 2 weeks, but I kept going and got my first 40WPM which seem s to be the lower average. Another two weeks. Boom 50WPM. Between those 30 and 50WPM I started to recognize a fascinating thing which was happening. It felt like magic.
The magical thing
I started to realize, that sometimes typing just happend, I didn’t have to think about it, my fingers moved to the location, where they should be and I started to read a new word while still writing the last one. It’s kind like breathing, you don’t have to think about it, it just happens and when you need more oxygen your lung just adapts. Of course, there are limits but the muscle memory effect in combination with your subconscious thinking is great. I’m still amazed how crazy efficient that whole subconscious thing is. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this right now. I want to experiment with that mechanism and figure out what else you can move in that part of your brain. But that is a topic for another time.
Equipment
My first blog article was about mechanical keyboards. I’m a sensual Person and I like smooth things. I got myself a mechanical keyboard, because I caved in and I regret nothing. That did helped to kickstart the learning to type thing. You don’t need to have a mechanical keyboard to learn that skill. Please have a working keyboard. If your equipment does have a unique failure, chances are that your brain figures out workaround which may lead to conflicts in the future. Unlearning or fixing subconscious routines can be hard. Do it proper the first time, so you don’t have to fix it and don’t have to be angry at your past yourself.
Conclusion
I’m happy with the acquisition of that skill. I improved my output for future projects and reduced the required time for things I have to do but don’t like to do. In the end, my time is limited and that skill will have saved me from days, weeks, or maybe even months of unenjoyable tasks by the end of my live. Never thought about this that way, but here we are and I think this tough will stick.
I enjoyed writing this.
Cheers and see ya.