(re)learning to type

tl;dr: It's been around 6 weeks using an ergonomic split keyboard.

Inspired by Peter's blog post about his experiences in changing to a split keyboard (and alternative keyboard layouts), I wanted to share bit of my own journey of using an ergonomic split keyboard: As part of the "elder millennials", I grew up around early DOS computers and their command-line, followed by an early internet that for lack of real multimedia relied heavily on text communication. As a result, I learned how to type on a keyboard pretty much in sync with reading & (hand)writing. Of course, that unfortunately also means that I'm now coming up to that age where my body doesn't appreciate sitting hunched over a laptop in strange shapes to make dining tables etc. into makeshift desks.

In other words, for a while now I'd been fighting with back and shoulder pain every time I spent too long writing on my computer. And given my current life circumstance of being between homes, getting a proper desk & chair could not really be part of the solution. And so I decided to finally give in – and try an ergonomic split keyboard. Especially as I suspected that most of my back/shoulder pain came from not opening up my back due to the short width of my laptop keyboard.

After some (absolutely excessive amount of) research, I went with Halcyon Elora, partially as it seemed to fit my smallish hands well and partially as it allowed for including a left-hand usable trackpad. Finding anything that's actually compatible for southpaws is still rare, so you bet I'm willing to support that! And so, since mid-April I've now switched to using this as my main, daily input device. And the good news to start with: My shoulder & back pain has basically all but disappeared! But of course it's been a bit of an uphill battle to get back to being as productive, especially as I didn't really know how to touch type before.

It turns out having self-learned typing as a child meant that I acquired a reasonable speed & accuracy, but not really the right way of reaching for the different keys with the right fingers. That worked fine when I could move around one keyboard, but not so much when the keys were all of a sudden ~40 cm away (like Y, 6 & B, that I used to press with my left index finger). Like Peter, I went with keybr as a way of slowly learning to properly type, using it alongside the Typing Club (as I stuck to QWERTY as my layout).

As you can see in the graph from keybr (green is speed, red is accuracy, purple is number of 'unlocked' letters as they introduce them in chunks), it took me a while to get back up to speed. Prior to the switch my speed was ~85 words per minute (wpm), which one can't really see in the graph due to the smoothing. But one can see the huge, smoothed bathtub shaped decline when I switched over to typing on the split keyboard, at the beginning my speed was down to ~25 wpm. Funny enough, learning the left half of the keyboard, where also most of the letter-keys are located, was a lot faster. I wonder if that's just a QWERTY-thing or if that comes with being left handed. Either way, now, a good 6 weeks after the switch, I'm back to my regular speed, and on good days even slightly above, and more importantly without any pain.

One thing I still struggle with is the "correct" use of the shift key. I apparently exclusively used the right shift key for all my life. Which has now become a real blocker once one started using the "right" fingers for the right keys.

The other thing that I'll have to do is set up a custom layer for shortcuts, e.g. for using JOSM when contributing to OSM or editing images. By default most shortcuts for these tools assume a right-handed person, using their right hand on the mouse. Which means they are located for easy access on the left-hand side of the keyboard. This has always been annoying for me, as I use the mouse with the left hand, but was still manageable by reaching over to the left-hand side of the keyboard. But now that I keep my mouse between the two split halves, that isn't really an option any longer. Luckily it's quite easy to map whole key combos and put them on extra layers, to make that easier. But that's for once I'm confident in reaching towards the correct shift key and finding all the special characters as quickly as the letter keys!