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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 practice 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

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