Interfacing

Learning to type quickly is in your best interest. Many careers are spent digitally and some of our leisure hours are dedicated to things like reading or research. Why is it that the average typing speed is 41 words per minute(wpm) when it could be much higher?

Waxing Philosophical

We’ve reached a point in civilization where tech is inescapable. It’s part of our lives, conversations, and now bodies. It’s here to stay. The most ubiquitous part of tech has existed since 1867, the QWERTY keyboard. We’ve had it for over 100 years (originally to prevent typewriter jams) and we still have only just begun to utilize it to its fullest potential.

The mouse has existed since the 1960s and it has been part of computer workflows ever since. This created a transaction that traded comfort in exchange for efficiency. Modern keyboards require nothing more than a jolt from the fingers to actuate, whereas using the entire arm to move a mouse.

In your hands is where your physical self ends and your digital self starts. It’s the interface between you and what you are trying to accomplish. Learning to utilize the keyboard to the fullest extent makes every aspect of using a computer far easier. The faster you’re able to type the shorter the delay is from your thoughts to the words written in front of you.

Being able to digitize your thoughts faster glues you to your work. In the tech industry, flow is your greatest ally. Utilizing the keyboard and remembering keyboard shortcuts minimizes any possible chance for a context switch. The less resistance, the higher chances of increased productivity.

The Practicals

Going from using mice and trackpads to typing efficiently is not an overnight change. Personally, this entire journey took me two years. I was a “hunt and peck” typist my entire life and I exclusively used a mouse for anything other than typing.

This was a huge handicap for learning programming and Linux administration due to my low throughput.

I had to first unlearn the bad habits that I’d accumulated over the years and then rebuild from there.

The primary course of action in achieving speed is as follows:

1. Understand that you will have to unlearn bad habits and be uncomfortable.
2. Learn to consciously feel your hands and the layout of the keyboard.
3. Train muscle memory for which finger types which key.
4. Practice using real words slowly.
5. Increase speed while maintaining accuracy.

Muscle Memory

Most of us have grown up with technology, we have been using keyboards most of our lives. That is both a blessing and a curse in that we’ve had a lot of time to screw things up for ourselves. Most people I know type with only their index fingers. This hinders accuracy and speed to a massive extent.

Real progress comes from acknowledging the fact that you will most likely have to relearn how to type from scratch. Starting from feeling your hands and being aware of your finger placement.

This is the most painful stage of the process but this part is foundational to everything that follows. If you skip this step, you will type faster, and poorly.

Throughout my relearning I used exclusively web tools to practice, there’s an abundance of them. The best for me, in the beginning, was KeyBR. KeyBR uses pseudo-English words to train your muscle memory. The more mistakes you make, KeyBR will recommend similar words until you get it right.

The key is to never falter in your technique, this is a critical part of the training process. Every bad habit you have will later be magnified. Feel your hands and be aware of them. In this stage, you learn which finger types which key. Never look at your keyboard, you create a context switch every time you do. Looking down is the single worst thing you can do for your typing. This is not a speed test, the goal is awareness and form.

I trained for about one month in this manner until I could type at a relative thirty words per minute without mistakes.

Increasing Speed

This is where most of the work happens, becoming faster takes time.

After learning the proper technique, increasing speed becomes much easier. Many people recommend 10 fast fingers and other time based typing tests. I never liked racing against the clock. It doesn’t feel natural. MonkeyType allows for word-based tests. You type ten, twenty-five, or fifty words as fast as you can. This allows you to ease into things with the primary focus on accuracy with speed being a byproduct. The inverse is true with timed tests, your accuracy will take a back seat.

Progression will not be linear, you stagnate for a short period before your speed increases again. This is normal and it shouldn’t discourage you, It’s part of the process. Think of this point in your progress as the refinement of technique.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” ~ Bruce Lee

Accuracy is paramount. If you make a mistake, restart your test and try again. Be hard on yourself, mistakes will slow you down. Too many of the same mistakes develop into patterns and you start to actively work against yourself.

Once you reach a speed of seventy words per minute. You will want to start specializing.

Tools of the Trade

As a programmer and sysadmin, there is more to typing than raw speed. With touch typing, a whole world opens up for customization and workflow changes.

Vim

Vim is a modal editor that relies on the home row for most of the editing functions. It’s a twitchy speed demon of an editor that once learned provides the most zen editing experience right inside the terminal.

Vim is universal across systems it’s the de facto editor of the sysadmin world. If you intend on touching servers, Vim is a mandatory requirement.

Once some of the commands are burned into your nervous system, you start to fly across your files, and your productivity increases. I recommend using the included vim tutor to work on practicing the basics. Once you understand the basic controls, you can focus on committing them to unconscious memory with a tool like vim genius.

Vimium

The vim experience doesn’t need to end in the terminal. Vimium allows for vim keybindings to be overlayed on your browser. It feels foreign at first, but once you get used to it, it will become irreplaceable. You become better at editing text when you do use vim.

You can click links, search and switch tabs all with the keyboard. Rendering the trackpads and mice useless. Getting used to using your keyboard as your primary interface will have you wanting more control over your system using this newfound skill.

Enter i3

I3 is a tiling window manager that uses the keyboard for its control. It is fully configurable and allows you to tailor every bit of it to suit your workflow.

By default, i3 uses its own movement scheme but it’s easy to overwrite and your vim key binds to it.

Switching to i3 has made a tremendous improvement in my interaction with Linux, I use the terminal more often and my hands are glued to the keyboard.

Interfacing

There’s something about the combination of all the things, by themselves they are nothing more than simple hacks. Together they form an interaction between the programmer and the computer that solidifies the ability for both to be efficient. Following these methods, I hope that you increase your efficiency and productivity, but most importantly I hope it incites a strong passion for technology.