Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Learn To Type Week - Day 3

(interested in what all the fuss is about? Read the original post)

Wow! Another day has gone by in "Learn To Type" week. I've had a great time watching people mark their progress on twitter (hashtag: #learn2typewk): everything from home row stats to switching to dvorak. I'd highly recommend putting a persistent search into your twitter client for #learn2typewk, so you can see all the people who are working with you. Tomorrow is Day 3! Almost halfway done, so don't despair, we're almost there!

There are a lot of people putting their speeds and accuracy counts up; it is really neat to see the improvement. Now that 2 days have gone by, try to set a realistic goal for the end of the week. Speed isn't what it is about, though, perhaps you want to consistently type effectively for all the rows without looking.

What to do today?

As always, I recommend starting with a baseline: freetypinggame.net's 1-, 3- or 5-minute tests. Then, continue the practicing you started.

I've noticed that when I'm doing practices, I find it easy to stay on a single one until I've 'mastered' it. So, I might be practicing the home row keys and find that I have them down, but maybe I could do them faster. Don't worry about the speed, just move on to the next exercise. Remember, speed comes once the techniques are in place.

As always, don't forget to intersperse your practice with fun! Typeracer.com is a great way to reap the benefits of all that practice. I'm keeping the racetrack open at http://vurl.me/TEL, so feel free to post a challenge on twitter with the hashtag #learn2typewk. If you are registered on the site, you can create your own track too and put out a private challenge.

Just think, no matter what, if you participate, you will win! Huzzah! That's more than can be said for a lot of things.