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A tool that increased my typing speed

vasilishynkarenka.com

21–30 of 173 posts

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#21
post #2

The legend of QWERTY being designed specifically to slow typists down will never die. It has that perfect "folk" quality, it should be true, the problem is simply that there isn't any evidence for it. What does stick out about QWERTY, is that you can type the word "typewriter" using only the top keys, a trick that made it easier for typewriter salesmen to memorize and demonstrate that little trick when selling their…

In fact, QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming of early typewriters, allowing to type faster.

http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#22
Record yourself writing, or programming, or whatever it is you do at the keyboard. You will see that it is not the speed of your typing that is the bottleneck, it is the creative process.

You are not a mindless machine hacking away at the keyboard. And, if you are, then the life hack take away is to stop and think a bit before typing.

Going slower often has lots of benefits.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#23
post #9
post #4

"You can 3x your typing speed if you set up shortcuts for most frequently used words to decrease the number of symbols you have to type. Here’s how it works on Mac OS or iOS." So a bit a predictive typing assistance and customizations. "Here are some ideas for reflection shortcuts that I use: “wam”—“Why am I feeling this way?” “wwl”—“What went well?” “wcb”—What could have gone better?" Like duckduckgo bangs I doubt I…

like VIM commands, you can't expect yourself to read the manual and master them all on the first try. You add them as you find yourself frustrated with how inefficient an operation is. I suspect it's going to be something that you slowly add and improve overtime, and, likewise, prune as your vocabulary changes.

But unlike vim commands these can't be composed, so the number of shortcuts scales linearly with the number of words/phrases you want to express. I'm not sure how useful this would be for me.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#26

Having used it for 20 years now... I don't find that dvorak improves my typing speed. If anything it probably net reduces my productivity since often I'm hitting paste (ctrl-v) and I miss and hit exit window (ctrl-x). However, I like it because it feels comfortable typing in it, way more so than qwerty.

Ditto, this is always what I tell people when they ask about it. Not really faster but definitely easier on the hands.

BTW on MacOS there is a Dvorak mode that uses QWERTY when the command key is down!

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#27
If you're on Linux and want to do this look for ibus-typing-booster. I submitted it 6 days ago, but it didn't get much attention. Unlike the author's method of manually setting up shortcuts for the most used words, ibus-typing-booster learns your most frequent words and then it's just a matter of typing a few chars followed by space, which inserts the whole word.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#28
post #16
post #10

The author proposes that we're somehow blocked from success because we can't type fast enough. Is that true? I don't agree; in fact, I'd rather be concise and communicate well than vomit more words onto the screen. Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed than spending what must be hours and hours building a bespoke solution for each one of your machines? And what is the cost of the…

There's always stenography http://www.openstenoproject.org/

I'm actually surprised not to see that mentioned on the page. Feels like merely a formal approach to what is otherwise an adhoc method.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#29
post #10

The author proposes that we're somehow blocked from success because we can't type fast enough. Is that true? I don't agree; in fact, I'd rather be concise and communicate well than vomit more words onto the screen. Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed than spending what must be hours and hours building a bespoke solution for each one of your machines? And what is the cost of the…

Not everyone’s words are equally valuable. Someone who does not vomit but actually has things worth saying, and a limited time in which to express them, would benefit from faster typing.

Worst case, it’s nice to get one’s job done faster to make time for other things.

You can always take your hands off the keyboard periodically if you want to write less.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#30
post #2

The legend of QWERTY being designed specifically to slow typists down will never die. It has that perfect "folk" quality, it should be true, the problem is simply that there isn't any evidence for it. What does stick out about QWERTY, is that you can type the word "typewriter" using only the top keys, a trick that made it easier for typewriter salesmen to memorize and demonstrate that little trick when selling their…

In fact, QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming of early typewriters, allowing to type faster . http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...

This is a patato patahto thing. It would only jam if you went too fast, so the story goes. Get rid of the jamming, or force a max speed that is lower.
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