One of the most usefull skills you can learn while sitting in front of the computer is blind typing. This saves tremendous amounts of time helping you to achieve more, especially if you are a writer. Knowing the position of keys is also crucial when you want to access keyboard shortcuts, thus making your keyboard one really useful tool.
Just think of how much time you’ll save from viewing your keyboard to find the right stroke? How much is this skill valuable? Not only that you are typing faster, you are also getting into the flow of your work. If you are writing an essay for your university and after a couple of hours of research you hit the flow and start typing. You will be finishing it in no time. People often overlook the flow of their productivity, with blind typing you EASILY get there. Being a fluent blind typer beats any other productivity tip out there!
So how do you exactly learn to blind type? I am going to tell you how I did it. When I was young and discovered the joys of online chat, I talked with tons of people frequently. At first, I was slow; then it sped up; but at one point I just wanted to watch the conversation while I typed.
I was trying. It was hit and miss, but that’s exactly how you can do it. I made a lot of typos, even loads more of errors, but eventually, there was this breaking point from which I almost instantly learned.
I was visualizing! I tried to figure out in my mind where every keystroke is located and how is it positioned according to other letters. I wasn’t trying to memorize the keyboard, but rather where the praticular letters are located. So if you ask me what letter is beside letter “A” I probably won’t know the answer. But, if you ask me where a particular letter is, my mind will pin point me the location where it should be according to the habit I created.
If you want to learn to blind type well, you will have to have these points in your head:
1. You will have to make it fun
2. You will have to repeat it a lot
3. VISUALIZE – this point alone got me there from someone who’s looking at the keyboard to someone who’s fluent blind typist.
I know that there’s a lot of software out there that can help you achieve this, but my road was without any tools and I got there, Just by doing stuff that I was already doing. My only stresser was Visualisation.
If you want to exercise this, I recommend typing for a while and then go of the keyboard. Try to imagine your fingers hitting the very exact letters on your “mind keyboard” and then start typing your thoughts as they happen. If you make a mistake, don’t stop, just continue typing until you eventually get it.
If you are a writer, this tool is insane, because you can approach to writing at the speed of your thoughts. I am writing my sentences at the same time as I think of them. Hitting the flow and pushing out a lot of work in short amounts of time is critical for our work.
What are your blind typing techniques? Are you struggling to get yourself on the blind typing path? Share your problems and achievments in comments.
