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Why should you learn touch typing as a software engineer?

zooboole

Published By zooboole

I use to think that typing is a total waste of time. Besides, I use to believe that as a software developer, we tend to think more than we type. We think for a long period of time, and we write just a little bit.

My mistake was those two thoughts. I didn't realize how much a software developer types. We don't type a lot but we do type for so long.

Sometimes the code we want to write is already been thought through. It's just left with writing it down. In this situation, we usually unfold our middle finger and start to hit the keyboard hard until we are done. Many of you can testify of how horrible those days are. There is this pain you feel for hours in those poor fingers. This puts you in a defensive position for any further exercise of typing coming ahead. It becomes a stimulus to be lazy and unwilling to do the same work.

Generally, this leads you to be less productive. Apart from the physical effort, there is also the time factor. Using one or two fingers can be time-consuming. Your hand runs on more distances through the keyboard. Not only it increases your muscular effort, it takes you more time to do little.

So, After I received that revelation, I decided to get rid of the one-finger-typing. It's something I have been planning to do since 2015. I tried in 2016, I couldn't. Then I did the same in 2017 and failed. in this 2018 I have decided to do it once for all. Every day, when I wake up the first thing I do is to practice typing for an hour or more. I started it almost three months now, and I have seen good results. In fact, I entirely wrote this article using my two hands. I took more time than my usual habit, but I know it's just for now.

While I am doing that daily exercise I have noticed some other benefits that I was not expecting:

- Focus

The process of learning how to type teaches you how to focus. I gain up to 100% focus is a very short period of time. And at that moment I can feel my full potential in thinking and observation. This is a wonderful thing for any creative mind. Imagine if you can extend that time to hours, or days...

- Concentration

This benefit accompanies the previous one. The key part here is that you stop multi-tasking. When you focus to reach a goal you end up doing just one thing.

- Ingenuity

It's amazing to see how people worked hard to bring to us the art of typing.
First, it involves the engineers behind the design of keyboards. Trust me there are so many things on your keyboard that you would never understand their use and reason of being until you learn how to touch-type.
Then comes those who understand how we could play our ten fingers to write faster.

- Time-saving

Well, I believe you would have understood it. The resultant of all this is time benefit, and time is money ;)

A touch typist can easily reach typing speeds above 75-80 words per minute, while a hunt and peck typist would be hard pressed to reach 30 words per minute. - Adam Fortgo

- Discipline

You will tell me more about this later. I noticed some discipline in my daily programs after I started typing. And the most important thing about this disciple is that it makes you more productive and teaches you the values of perseverance.

I am pretty sure these benefits are few among the multitude of possibilities in this disciple. Learn this little thing and gain time and respect. I am talking of respect because you might have a talk where you need to write something in front of your audience. If you can't type without looking at your keyboard, you have to lose focus on your audience momentarily.

Now how do you learn touch typing?

Well, the first thing would probably be to type on Google "learn to type", and click on the first result.

I did that and tried many things. Personally, I am not in hurry to be a professional typist. I want to get right and sure. So I settled on simple tools. On my Windows computer, I use "Mavis Beacon" and "Klavaro" on my Ubuntu PC. But I am sure there thousands of tools and websites out there that will help you make it on your own pace.

On your marks, train your fingers, wriiiiiite!

Cover image credit to FotoshopTofs