Do you remember — the speed of your nod would reveal your age 😀— when there used to be courses on ‘typing’? Type classes, as they were known.
Then we saw the personal computer revolution, so fast that ‘typing classes’ became a distant memory.
In fact, film director Basu Chatterji had designed interesting opening credits for his 1975 movie ‘Chhoti si baat’. A typist lady working on a typewriter, typing out all the opening credits!
In any case, that was 1975!
Nowadays, you will find that most of the knowledge-worker class has a personal computer. But when it comes to typing skills, the skills are below average. Most of the people I have come across look at their keyboard while typing.
Now, let’s get one thing clear: it is okay to look at the keyboard.
The only question is how long in your life should you keep looking at the keyboard from the first time you own a computer? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?
The first keyboard magic
Almost 20 years ago, I had seen a computer for the first time. In my small school’s newly built computer lab (I don’t know why they used to call it a lab).
Our young computer teacher held a keyboard in front of the group of 30 students who were sitting on the floor. And he showed how the keys were arranged in a haphazard fashion — what now we call a QWERTY keyboard.
And then he did magic.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
He typed this in front of the class as if he was speaking the English alphabet in the correct sequence.
Remember, our school had a Gujarati vernacular medium, with all of their students coming from lower to middle economic class. The group that witnessed this magic had learned the English alphabet just 3 years prior to that class.
I was absolutely stunned.
Since that day, I subconsciously related “being cool” with “typing without looking at the keyboard”.
The Multi-tasker
When I began using a computer as a part of my work, soon I became a multi-tasker ninja. I would stare at the computer screen and keyboard back and forth throughout my typing.
The problem with this way — the way most people still type — is that there are serious drawbacks:
- Slow Speed: You may not want to be the fastest typist in the world. But if you could improve your typing speed by 10 words, that would change the way you work. By a magnitude. Look at the chart below. Just hitting the edge of the average on the right would take you into a different category of people. With unexpected benefits.
- Limited Career Opportunities If you are a knowledge worker, understand that low typing speed = low exposure to career opportunities. As I say, typing should become analogous to thinking. Once it is reached, you can write, edit and inspect your thoughts in real-time. This would give you a distinct edge in any knowledge work.
- Divided Attention Does it ever happen to you when you start Googling a query and Google throws a matching query but you’re too busy looking at the keyboard? You would know you have improved your speed when this stops happening.
- Strained Neck and Bad Posture If you have neck and posture issues, it is likely to have a root cause in your typing posture and Smartphone usage habits. The thing that we are going to talk about next — is touch typing, it is a technique. It is like athletics of hands. You have to position your hands with a certain level of lightness on the keyboard. And the rest of the body is slightly at more height than the keyboard. And it solves any posture-related issues.
Touch typing
It took me 12 more years since that keyboard magic moment to come across the practice of touch typing.
If you know me personally, you know I’m a curious creature.
When I noticed that all keyboards, everywhere had these bumps on the same letters — F and J, I learned about their purpose.
The bumps guide the typist to position his fingers for typing.
That leads me to a free, tiny software TypingMaster.
Typing Test
Before you start using Typing Master, I suggest taking a couple of typing speed tests on typingtest.com
Once you know what’s your average WPM (words per minute), you will be able to track your progress.
TypingMaster
I used TypingMaster when computers had CD drive sockets. The layout might have changed but their fundamentals remain the same.
The software has a surprisingly simple UI. Keeping a beginner’s mindset helps here.
How I used it
I had taken one-hour self-learning using TypingMaster’s in-built bite-sized learning sessions for a week. And the majority of my work depended on typing as I was involved in curriculum design at the time. I would learn 4-5 keys a day and start implementing in my work the next day. No matter how strong the desire to look at the keyboard, I would control myself and just follow the drill.
After doing this for a week, I kept struggling for a few more weeks. And made it a point to delay the work by making typing mistakes but not falling prey to looking at the keyboard.
Then I don’t remember when the switch happened, I didn’t require to look at the keyboard again.
In fact, now I would make a mistake if I look at the keyboard.
TypeRacer
Though TypingMaster also provides tiny and effective games, once your one-week training is over, you may visit https://play.typeracer.com/ to participate in the free races that occur with live people. It is instant and fun.
Unexpected Benefits
Honing good typing skills has unexpected benefits, I didn’t know at the time:
- Shipping work Being a knowledge worker, my work is always and almost in the form of a document, presentation, design brief, or some sort of planner. I can ship my work on time, most of the time. I wouldn’t procrastinate typing a lengthy report. Because typing is like thinking or talking. It becomes second nature.
- Grasp programming languages If you hate typing, you can’t practice writing code. And so you can’t grasp a programming language that easily.
- Take MoMs I dislike taking MoMs, but when typing becomes a form of thought, you can instantly recognize what to write and keep pace with the ongoing discussion.
- Getting the most out of AI agents Right now, Artificial Intelligence agents are dependent on text input. I feel pleasure in providing an extended context and details to the agents to get better results.
- Being picky about keyboards This is a benefit. I don’t believe in adapting to any situation even when I know that the alternative is better. When you have improved your typing, you wouldn’t want to work on just any keyboard. Bad equipment = compromised work. So, when you demand a certain standard in your keyboard, you’d better your work.
NOW YOU.
What do you hate about typing? What’s the major roadblock for you?
Or Are you a pro-typist yourself? How did you practice?
Hit Reply and share with me!
Reads of the week:
- I am the healthiest person I know, and I got cancer!: In this deeply personal article, Seema, Nithin Kamath’s wife, recounts her cancer detection and the afterlife. I’m amazed at how resilient we humans can be. Seema’s story is like a day of summer in freezing winter.
- The pitfalls of “cool parent” leadership: Empathy, compassion, and moral decision-making are three separate entities. How should one approach their relationship with their team?
- The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment: I’m still midway through reading this lengthy gem by Charlie Munger, but who said no to share if it is still under reading?
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