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I'm trying again to learn how to touch type. For no reason in particular, other than I always had that desire (despite sometimes lying about not having it). I'm using Klavaro.
For those of you who only learned to touch type later in your careers and had gone through the growling adaptation period, do you have any advise for me? In particular tips or tricks on how to fight the demoralizing feeling of suddenly starting to type very slowly?
I have no tip for the demoralization and needed several tries myself, but what I can say is that you absolutely must resist the temptation of doing it half-assed, which is my problem.
After maybe a week, you will develop a blind intuition of the keys' location in space, but habit will urge your dominant fingers to sometimes reach for keys assigned to the weaker ones (e.g. "-" is probably assigned to your pinky). This half-assed way will get you 80% there and deceptively feel like progress, but it's a plateau that you can only leave by climbing back down. The correct way – to my understanding – is to use the assigned fingers at all times, which allows for the acquisition of robust muscle memory and ultimately the low error rate.
Good luck!
I used a software called Typing Master Pro (not free, I believe) back when I learned to touch type almost 7 or 8 years back. By the end of the course, I was able to reach a speed of 45 wpm (not great, still better than hunt and peck). I am sure lot of good free programs would be available now. There are also very good games like typeracer.com online where you play against others to improve your speed.
Now, I am able to reach upto 65-70 wpm. I would consider this skill is one of the worthy investment I have made in my life as it has saved me a ton of time/memory power. I remember reading this advise somewhere when I was learning that I would like to repeat: "Focus on accuracy, speed will follow". Never rush, take it slow.
I am, I will.
I feel more confident this time that I may have hit enough motivation to go through it. Before I would always quit on the same day or the next after I started it, I think because there was not enough motivation. But this time I feel different about it. It's a tough process though. It's a new experience to me having to consciously reduce my skills for a period in order to improve them later down the road. I guess its what some athletes go through, or artists, when they need to fix what they thought was the right way of doing it.
I wrote this touch typing, btw. Took me close to 20 minutes...
O_o
I can't help with the demoralizing feeling. If I had tips for helping with becoming demoralized, I'd have probably resolved my issues with algebra by now.
I do have some advice though: learn with multiple keyboards if you can.
I learned to type on a "Model M", or solid clone, keyboard. Even to today, I still have problems accounting for the spacing and resistance offered on most keyboards. I type the way an elephant tap dances.
And, Just sharing for funsies, I've played so many computer games that my hands default to "shift-a-s-d" and "alt-ctrl-?-enter" so often don't type from a correct position.
The malplacement frustrates everyone who watches me type. ^_^;
Soma
Hey I dont know how much worth my little opinion will be here, but here goes.
I didnt know what touch typing was until today and I usually type with only three fingers.
But sometime ago I started using the computer late in the night in a dark room...initially it was very frustrating to see the keys in a dark room, so I was unconsciously forced to rely on a sort of "touch typing" technique. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning but I've gotten better with time. So I think one way to force yourself to learn touch typing would be to practice in a dark room.
I tend to type with three fingers on each hand.
I use the fourth finger (next to pinky) of my left hand to hit Q, A, Z caps lock, etc. (anything past the a Key).
On my right hand it's the same with semi-colons, back space, enter and most symbols.
I have a typing speed of ~125 wpm.
You sort of visually memorize where the keys are. Unless computer hardware
changes the keyboard layout from QWERTY in the future, it's more or less a case
of practice, practice, practice until it sticks. I can sort of touch type but still
need to look at the keyboard where numbers are concerned. My laptop does not
have a side numeric keypad so all the numbers are below the function keys. ;)