As I am always on the look out for ways to optimise my workflows, and given that I currently write a lot of messages, documents and emails for work, I thought it might be a good opportunity to pick up a new skill. My current typing speeds are pretty good on a traditional qwerty keyboard, and similarly on an ergonomic keyboard so I wouldn't necessarily gain too much from yet another method of typing. But, marginal gains et al right?
Absolutely, the fastest way to improve the time-from-thought-to-paper metric would be either speech-to-text or more use of AI, but that isn't fun!
Stenography has been on the list of things to learn for a few years now, and with a mechanical stenography keyboard available I had no reason not to give it a go.
Having called in a favour from a friend to help me purchase the keyboard while I was passing through San Francisco (saving on delivery and import fees), I could start learning Stenography!
Setup was pretty simple: install Plover and plug in the keyboard. A few configuration changes later, it was ready to use. There are quite a few resources available online which will guide you through the basics. Here are some of my favourite so far:
- Art of Chording - A great short online book to learn basic theory
- Typey Type - Structured interactive lessons and games
- StenoPad - An online blank pad to practice even with a normal qwerty keyboard
- Entertrained - Lots of free books to practice typing with