How I went from 10 to 130 WPM in 3 months

take a moment and look down at your keyboard for almost everyone you'll see the key is laid out like this q-w-e-r-t-y a-s-d-f we all learn to memorize the order of these keys and most of us type with this layer on a daily basis but try to answer this question why are the key set up like this why not have all the letters be in alphabetical order it would be much easier to learn how to type if you already knew where all the letters were but instead our standard is layout called qwerty you might guess oh it's probably because layout designers found this layout was the fastest it must take the most common letters and put them in the most easily accessible locations that is not true the qwerty layout was created around the 1870s when typing was done on typewriters that old mechanical device that had a keyboard and directly printed letters onto a piece of paper using ink the exact reasons for his design are still unclear many people say the letters are laid out to make the most common keys harder to reach therefore reducing the risk of jams others believe the layout was a result of advice given by morse code telegraph operators regardless the qwerty layout was designed to solve a problem that no longer exists so the question remains why do we still use it there is no reason aside from the fact that it came first it was already the standard when computer keyboards came into prominence and now that it's so widespread it would be an extremely difficult task to alter the standard but surely there have been people who have tried to make a better layout right yeah you might have heard of the dvorak layout before it has some public appeal but it didn't end up replacing cordy as the facto layout despite its claims of being more efficient faster and more comfortable i'd guess it's because in moving around all of the keys it makes for an incredibly steep learning curve and even after you do learn it you lose the convenience of shortcut keys like undo copy cut and paste and looking for video ideas through my youtube comments i stumbled upon this one he talked about the third most popular keyboard layout call mac it solved a lot of the issue that the vork had due to it being more slim and qwerty and it also made it easier to learn this comment reminded me that i actually did try to learn colmac about two years ago getting to around 50 words per minute before giving up and just practicing with qwerty again it was hard to commit to a new layout because i couldn't handle typing on half the speed when it came to essays or emails now i want to commit but first i have to find the layout that suits me best there are a surprising amount of alternate layouts and my only problem with colmac was an over-reliance on the middle two columns there are a number of factors that keyboard layouts can optimize for but i was looking for maximum home row usage with minimal middle column usage i stumbled upon this layout called workman which is probably the fourth most popular layout the design philosophy aligned with what i was looking for so i decided why not there are a few videos and articles on the internet of people learning these alternate layouts they're fine my only problem with them is the fact they never really get to awards per minute that i would consider as mastery and sometimes they don't even talk about their peak speed at all and sure where's permitted over 100 is probably overkill for most situations it's certainly an important factor to take into account when you're comparing layouts with that in mind i decided to do it myself i have used workmen for the past three months and this was my experience it's been a while since i tried to learn colmec i underestimated how difficult it actually is to unlearn your muscle memory when you are quick with typing you don't think about what your fingers are doing or where any of the letters are it's all done by feel i can type with my eyes closed because i've practiced enough to not need any visual reference while typing overwriting the habits and technique that i use to type each word is actually pretty mentally taxing suddenly you have to think about every single key that you press and resist your muscle memory's inclination to hit a different key when you first start trying to improve at typing there are two things that you have to achieve before you can start getting to respectable speeds first know the locations of the key by memory i'm talking about not looking at your keyboard or any other reference image while you're typing you should be able to remember the general location of every key after a moment of thought second know the locations of the keys without having to think about it this means committing the locations of the keys to muscle memory you shouldn't have to actively think about where any of the letters are your fingers should know where to go automatically from there you can start training your speed but until you know where all the keys are by muscle memory and without looking at the keyboard you will be hard capped with speed the first time i tried using workman i decided to play against my viewers in type racer it was rough i believe the best way to commit the locations of keys to muscle memory was to forego any sort of reference image i would figure out where the keys were by trial and error and over time i wouldn't have to think about where they were at all whether or not that's true it's what i did and i got destroyed i couldn't even complete a single race because i was tapping with around 10 words per minute i didn't beat a single viewer who stopped by and came to challenge me [Music] my plan was to exclusively use this new layout after i got to about 50 words per minute i knew that i was going to lose every race and that was part of the reason i did the stream to show how far down the ladder i really was but i was still disappointed that i couldn't finish even a single quote so i decided i'm gonna commit right away i went from an average of 140 to 10 words per minute it wasn't painful the only time i ever used qwerty was to quickly type a response to someone who needed help or to respond to comments that deserved longer responses aside from that whether i was playing type racer or just typing a message to friends over discord i was using workmen i think that this was actually a great strategy while more focused practice is often the most effective full immersion with whatever you're trying to learn can help a lot with getting comfortable more quickly i imagine that's why people who learn a second language become much more fluent after living in that country and speaking that language for a period of time for typing it was also working very effectively i was getting 10 words per minute faster every single day up until the 50 to 60 threshold and i still improved but it started to slow down to about 5 words per minute of the day as for qwerty i could still switch instantly it didn't even take a second to adjust if i had to respond to an angry comment i could switch without even thinking about it but at some point i tried to do a quick typewriter quote with qwerty just to get the feeling of typing quickly again and i was typing gibberish my fingers were getting jumbled up and what was so effortless before became impossible sometimes i would be able to type for a moment and then the rest of the sentence would turn into nonsense it was actually kind of scary i didn't want to lose my ability to type quickly and after about 20 minutes of struggling and typoing it just clicked and i was back to normal again i continued getting better every day after two weeks i got my first 100 words per minute score after a month my first average of a hundred i was feeling good my improvement was consistent and at this rate i'd be catching up to my qwerty speed soon but improvement at typing is not a linear process even though i was getting better every day after you reach a certain skill level your improvement rate starts to slow down just like any other skill and that reality started to hit me my original goal for this project was to get an average of 120 words per minute and that started to seem impossible even though i had reached 100 words per minute in a month i was stuck between 100 and 110 words per minute for the entirety of the next month i was still playing type racer almost every day i just didn't see much improvement sometimes i felt like i was typing a lot quicker than i used to but then i'd finish the race and see that i used to have a better score then an old friend stopped buying a twitter thread where i was talking about my improvement and he said this you're nuts give it two more weeks and it'll be faster than my words per minute on that jank layout unbelievable he had the gall to insult alternate layouts so it fell upon me to defend the honor of everyone who used them on a random twitch stream where some viewers challenged me to type racer1v1s i was winning almost all of them scores of 90s and hundreds pretty commonly and then he appeared i played against him long ago in my courty days and trounced him so badly i didn't even remember his typing skill level i was happy to take on his challenge and destroy him just like the others and i lost and i lost again and again and again we must have done 20 races and i lost every single one of them it's just type racer this whole bit is just a joke but i actually did feel defeated i felt like i wasn't good enough for many this would be a cause of sadness and motivation but for me that feeling of inadequacy makes me want to get better even more next time i want to be the one that wins 20 times in a row breaking plateaus in anything is a difficult task sometimes a new practice method can help you push through it and other times it's just more and more focused practice my problem was that i was obsessed with speed i should have thought about my time playing oh so violin where even if you have the requisite speed sometimes you got to take it slow and refined each and every motion that you're making that's what let me break through i had to slow down to go faster and honestly that's what improvement is all about while this is a video about typing continuing to get better at anything requires this sort of self-analysis of course there's an element of endless practice but you have to know what and how to practice too whether you play shooters or rhythm games or it's another skill like an instrument or sport it is so important that you analyze your own weaknesses and mistakes and make the most of the time you spend practicing 20 minutes of focus practice is so much more productive than an hour of aimless practice but when i finally got that average of 120 i was looking for it felt damn good and now it's finally time to see if all of that effort paid off me against sephie once again in the rematch of a lifetime another 20 races for the books so how did i do oh no there's a dash this is not fair oh it's over it's over dude i'm slain already okay this is the same guy the guy who destroyed me in battle all right this this is it i got you in the long run things are looking pretty good things are looking kind of nice this is awful this is so bad i thought maybe that'd have a challenge here but i know i need a rain check or something good guy it's even a short one this is this has got to be it [Music] maybe not maybe not maybe this okay we gotta we got a hundred at least if you want a handicap plus 20 into your scores wow [Laughter] i won all of them were close but the practice i put in was really evident i got my redemption arc and played against other viewers too in the span of three months i went from not being able to finish a single quote to beating pretty much everyone who challenged me on that day my best average of ten races was in the top point one percent of all players while there are still typists who are twice as good as i am i do feel like i'm good enough to give a conclusion now is it worth it to learn another keyboard layout qwerty is objectively the least efficient popular keyboard layout but i don't think that anyone should learn another layout with the intent of trying to raise their words per minute there are a few people using colmac with vorak with incredibly high speeds but there are still qwerty typists who are even faster how can this be possible if cordy wasn't even designed for speed i can't give you an 100 definitive answer but based on my experience i'd say there are two main reasons people have years and years of practice recording catching up to that amount of practice is almost impossible and the inefficiencies that qwerty has are not so significant as to hinder speed in a huge way so would i recommend learning an alternate layout at all if you type a lot for work or just in your day-to-day life you could pick up an alternate layout since it reduces the amount of movement your hands and fingers need to do but that said ergonomics and posture are still the more important things to optimize in regards to speed i would bet that if all other factors were the same if two people started from not knowing how to type but one use qwerty and the other using optimized layout then the person using the optimized layout should have a higher words per minute in theory so if you're sitting around the 20 to 50 words per minute area and you pick up an alternate layout you will probably see improvement in your overall voice per minute mostly because it'll force you to re-learn how to type and more importantly how to touch type i found this whole experience and experiment to be a lot of fun i enjoy typing a little bit more now because the motions that my hands make are a bit more fluid on top of that the feeling of getting better every single day was really satisfying and if the idea of learning an alternate layout interests you then give it a go but that said the learning process is truly difficult i would guess that if a thousand people try learning an alternate layout maybe 10 of them would be able to stick with it and push through that painful relearning process at the start there's an amazing video on the internet called the backwards brain bicycle it was an experiment done by a channel called smartereveryday in the project he tries to unlearn his muscle memory for riding a bike and learns to ride a bike that has inverted turning he does manage to do it after enough practice but once he tried to go back to a normal bike he couldn't do it he couldn't stabilize himself what was once his default was now foreign to him however after a few minutes of trial and error it clicked and he could just ride again throughout the entirety of this learning process i thought it would be the same way with cordy i decided not to touch the layout for the entire last month of the project because i really wanted to make workmen my default but i thought i would always be able to go back to my original muscle memory after a bit of practice and coercion well i gave it a go and here's what happened it's been nearly three months using workman and there's only one thing left to do the question that everyone gets asked who picks up an alternate keyboard layout can you still type with cordy well no no i can't i can't it's actually so difficult i'm gonna i'm gonna see how it goes i'm gonna get a timer on screen here we go it's gonna be a struggle i think i can recall the location of all the keys never mind five words per minute honestly i don't feel too bad about that all things considered i was getting a lot of the right keys no muscle memory yet we're gonna see if it kicks in if and when i mean i have years and years of practice with query i would expect at some point i'd be able to type with it but let me shut up and focus we're like it's j i haven't done a single j yet where they put j that's crazy i actually don't know they have to reference it's in the middle row with a joke [Music] we did it 20. one hour and one 10 minutes in and we finally got above 20 words per minute i'm starting to feel it i'm starting to feel all right we'll see i hope i don't have together two hours and it's already taken longer than i expected to be honest but i do think this is a milestone that's uh means more than it looks like but we'll see we'll see okay i i can't do it i can't do this rather i can do it i know that i can and i know that the learning process would be a lot easier than picking up a fully new layout but i really thought i could i could bang this out in a single session and i don't think that's the case i think this is a matter of days not hours that i get to the proper level that i'm looking for here because i've been doing this for an hour and a half almost and i'm barely seeing any progress like i'm making the same mistakes over and over again and it's better for sure i'm getting better again but there's no like click moment so far there's so much unlearning that i have to do i feel like i don't know if i can just like switch gears like i thought i would be able to everything just feels so wrong and i know it's just because i'm not used to it anymore but still oh man i'm cramping up this is i need to take days i hope i hope that it's possible to have it just click back into into muscle memory i hope i'm not wrong i didn't end up putting more time into qwerty after i did this experiment i immediately felt that my workman muscle memory was getting disrupted i was making more typos because my fingers were reaching for the right keys and qwerty but the wrong keys in workmen i believe that it was impossible to be able to type at 100 plus words per minute and two different layouts because you don't have time to think about the keys you're pressing at that speed i thought you could only replace your muscle memory as opposed to being able to activate either one at will but i'm saying that in the past tense and unfortunately that's not a result of my practice allowing me to learn to switch between the two and i even wrote into the script and except about how i didn't think it was possible but when i was doing some research on fast typist and alternate layouts i came across this one jash the guy has an impressive typing resume having the seventh highest score on 10 fast fingers of all time but one video of his really stood out to me he switches between qwerty dvorak and colmac in the course of a single typing test it's instant there's no transitional period and he's better than me with all three of them but yeah it is doable and i suppose the difference is that he practiced each layout individually but he also practiced switching between the layouts it's a truly impressive feat that i don't think anyone else can even come close to but now that i know what's possible i gotta go re-learn corey again but for now i'm still enjoying the improvement process with workman and i want to keep going with it i might even try a new layout with a slightly different design philosophy and try to be the second person that can average 170 words per minute across three layouts if you're just looking for raw speed do all the practice that you can and analyze yourself for areas of improvement but if you like the idea of rewiring your brain and starting from scratch then maybe you can find yourself on the alternate layout and get good with that thanks for watching i do want to plug one more thing before i go it took me two months to release a new video and that's not okay but juggling full-time streaming while making time for improvement at the skill i'm trying to learn and taking time for the video creation process is difficult i've got a lot of ideas for future videos and i want to release them more regularly i recently got denied for twitch partnership and it's given me a bit of a reality check i was streaming five days a week and while it was a lot of fun i think for the time being i want to focus on youtube so to make it more sustainable i decided to launch a patreon of course it's not mandatory at all but if you want to support what i do and help me release more content then i'd appreciate it so much if you gave it a [Music] look you

Channel: pinguefy

Views: 3,555,422

Rating: 4.9418893 out of 5

Keywords: pinguefy, pinguify, penguify, typing, 100 wpm, wpm, dvorak, colemak, workman, qwerty, improvement, keyboard layout, keyboard

Id: a2Nb9QVujgU

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020