Dvorak Day Four

I’m on day four of this magical adventure and I’m slowly becoming more capable.

I’m averaging around thirty words per minute now in the little typing program, but probably a bit less in real life. At least I don’t want to kill myself when I type anymore. It’s the little things in life, you know?

It has been really fascinating to learn a new skill, start from scratch, and watch my progress daily. One really interesting thing I’ve noticed is that my words per minute don’t really go up during the day, even though it feels easier as I practice more throughout the day. However, when I wake up the next morning I am much faster.

Maybe my brain commits the new information as I sleep or something.

There are a few misconceptions from the comments to clear up too…

Is Dvorak faster? Almost certainly, but not necessarily much faster. Twenty words per minute is about the fastest boost that people seem to get, although there are a few extreme cases of big gains as well as people who get no gains.

Put it this way – no studies say that qwerty is faster. And how could it be? It wasn’t designed to be fast.

More importantly, Dvorak DEFINITELY requires less finger movement. Ninety percent less. That is huge, especially for avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome. I also wonder if it makes using small subnotebook keyboards easier.

Using other computers isn’t a big deal either. Any computer can be switched temporarily in a matter of seconds or you can just go back to qwerty temporarily. Most people don’t forget it.

For me it comes down to this: I can invest time now that will pay some sort of dividend for the rest of my life. Easy choice – I feel like there’s no choice really. Maybe I would have gotten carpal tunnel before and now I won’t. I type thousands of words every week, so it seems likely. Or maybe it will take me a few less minutes to write posts every day. That will add up.

I love stuff like this. I get excited about anything that makes me better or more efficient.