Thoughts after learning touch typing

By now, you'd think that we would've come up with a more efficient way of talking with computers. Seriously, my laptop knows all my darkest secrets, yet I still use the same QWERTY keyboard layout from the nineteenth century? Come on, this can't be the best we've got.

Sure, there are alternative input methods, like dictation or eye tracking. Every so often, some "mind-reading" technology goes viral. But there's a reason why most of us still type.

So, I must face it: I'm probably stuck with the keyboard for the rest of my career. To enjoy the decades we have left together, I might as well learn touch typing — or, as the most annoying person you know would call it, the correct way to type.

What's touch typing?

Touch typing is the ability to type without looking at the keyboard. You place your fingers on the middle row and use them to press only the designated keys.

If you're coming from an average hunt-and-peck typing style, this method should improve your speed and accuracy. It also puts you into a satisfying flow that you just don't get when you're peeking at the keyboard.

Where I come from

Since my Windows XP days, I've been using about half of my fingers with my eyes glued to the keyboard — a technique far from elegant, but good enough to get the job done. It was only a few months ago when I stumbled upon a typing competition video that made me realize just how inefficient my typing style was.

Like how often I would assume I was typing into a field, only to discover that it wasn't focused — and instead, I had triggered a bunch of random shortcuts that made my desktop look like someone had pulled a prank on me.

Or how painfully slow I would be when taking notes on a call. Looking down at my keyboard felt as professional as having to rejoin a meeting to give your browser the right permissions. The pressure of wanting to get back to the conversation only paralyzed my fingers more.

Even when typing in the comfort of a notifications-free deep work session, I was still making plenty of typos. The routine of going back to fix every misspelled word felt as shameful as cleaning up popcorn you spilled on a movie theater floor when running late.

So, if there was one skill that would improve my workflow, it was touch typing.

Learning touch typing

Learning to touch type is not rocket science. All you have to do is practice using the correct fingers to hit the right keys until you build enough muscle memory. There are several websites where you can do that. I've used keybr.com.

With 15 minutes a day, it took me a few weeks to feel somewhat comfortable with touch typing. Then, I moved on to Monkeytype to practice with quotes, which are closer to what I type on an average day.

After a couple of more weeks, I reached 80 words per minute with 98% accuracy. "Yup, that's good enough," I thought, graduating as a self-proclaimed touch typist.

Breaking the habit

The next day, I woke up in a particularly good mood. I fired up my laptop. Slack messages started pouring in; I cracked my knuckles, excited to reply with my newly acquired skill.

But my enthusiasm evaporated after just a few keystrokes. My muscle memory was gone, even though I'd "worked out" the day before. With more and more threads piling up in my inbox, I gave up and went back to the old habit.

What happened?! I was doing so well, and suddenly my fingers were frozen stiff. Did I just waste weeks on typing gibberish?

Then I realized the harsh truth: if you only touch-type on practice websites, you'll mostly improve your score, not the actual skill.

Both keybr.com and Monkeytype are designed to minimize the amount of thinking required for typing. Placeholder characters appear right next to the cursor. By default, you train with only the most common English words. Each round takes about half a minute to complete, so it's easy to get hooked.

For building the muscle memory, this is a perfect environment. You don't think; you just press the right keys. Play some music or a podcast in the background, and practice becomes an unwinding ritual.

But the reality of writing is the opposite. You type to communicate, not just to flex your hand muscles. The machine can't autocomplete your thoughts. But when your brain is rewired to focus on the typing speed, you freeze.

And that's what happened to me. I lacked the mental capacity to adopt a new typing method overnight. Besides, I was no longer retyping famous movie quotes. My work jargon included all sorts of abbreviations, numbers, and proper nouns that I didn't get a chance to practice on Monkeytype.

Fortunately, I wasn't working under any tight deadlines at the time — so I gritted my teeth and practiced touch typing at work, even though I was so slow that my colleagues might have thought I was taking a break for every reply.

After a few days of agony, something clicked. One time, I approached my keyboard to answer a message and without a second thought, I was touch typing. It just felt natural. And it still does.

What's next?

Ergonomics improvements

Sure, "your best posture is your next posture". But bad posture still exists, and I'm living proof of that. I blame my old typing style, which forced me to hunch over the keyboard to see the keys I was pressing.

But that constraint is gone now. My eyes can maintain contact with my monitor, allowing me to sit up straight; my wrists can hover over the keyboard, taking the stress off my shoulders. I'm nowhere near an ergonomics model, but my body is grateful for every small improvement.

Touch typing in Polish

During my training, I prioritized learning to touch type in English because I use it at work. But this decision came at a cost: I'm still quite slow and inaccurate when typing in my native language, Polish. When chatting with friends and family, I tend to revert to the trusty hunt-and-peck method.

To be fair, this is not solely a skill issue. Polish uses a lot of diacritical marks, which you type by combining a letter with the Alt or Option key. In theory, you should press it with your thumb, but that's significantly harder to do with an Apple keyboard layout because of its farther position from the space bar.

Multiply that by a dozen times per sentence, add an occasional Shift, and you end up with a significantly more difficult experience. Which brings me to my next point.

A little treat

Some folks claim that it's easier to learn touch typing on a mechanical keyboard. But this seems to be more of a personal preference than an evidence-based rule. In the last few weeks, I got my hands on a Keychron for a brief moment, and I can't prove it made a difference in my speed or accuracy.

But after all these weeks of intense practice, I think I deserve a little treat to celebrate my achievement, don't you agree? Mechanical keyboards aren't just pretty — they're also insanely customizable. For example, you can remap the keys. I could switch Command with Option to ease the pain of typing in Polish. And if I wanted to go a little extra, I could build a fully custom keyboard.

So while I resist the urge to splurge, you might hear the satisfyingly tactile sounds coming from my room the next time I type my next blog post.