Slow Down to Speed Up

Speed is a wonderful thing.  I am constantly looking for ways to do things faster and more efficiently.  Typically, I am very disciplined in learning new habits.  I love to learn new things and as a web developer, I will often take on client projects just for the challenge of trying something totally new and creative.

But I have a confession.  Something has been nagging at me for years and I haven’t been able to conquer it just yet.  Are you ready for this?  I can’t type.

Yup – I’m a web developer, a blogger, and a total computer geek, but I can’t type.  Let me clarify – I can’t type “properly”.  Typing class was optional when I was in high school.  Given the choice between typing class and band, I chose band.  (That was actually the smarter decision considering I went on to major in music.)

Actually, I can type pretty fast.  I have my own little system, but it is admittedly very inaccurate.  I will go back and edit at least 50 words in this post before I publish it – guaranteed.  I know – because I have to go back and edit almost every single email I type. There is ALWAYS something wrong.  Usually several “somethings”.  My system is not efficient.  What to do? :(

I’ve thought about taking typing lessons for a long time.  I have two CD-ROM programs I could use.  There are hundreds of typing tutors on the web.  There’s no lack of tools out there to help me, so why have I resisted?  Because taking the time to learn to type properly means I have to slooooooow down and re-train myself to do something right.  That is difficult.  Especially when my income is dependent on me being able to use a keyboard.  ;)  Yes, I get paid to reinforce my bad habits.

So here’s my plan.  If I had my way, I’d take a couple of days off and focus 100% on retraining my fingers to hit the right keys even when I’m not looking.  Unfortunately, as a freelancer, I don’t have that luxury.  I take work as it comes in, which is pretty much every day.  ;)  However, I realize that slowing down is the only way I will be able to speed up.  I HATE going back and correcting all my typos.  It’s time-consuming and irritating.  It bugs me to no end and it’s right there in my face taunting me all day long.  So I started thinking about what it would be like to sit down and type a perfect email.  Or to add code to my site without crashing it because I hit a ‘ instead of a ; (critical difference in the geeky world of php and css).  I also started thinking about how much time I would save and what I could be doing with that time.  I didn’t “do” anything about it, but I sure thought about it.  A LOT!

Eventually, all my thinking about the benefits became so enticing that I have now made a commitment to improve my typing.  I am setting a written goal to be an accurate typist at 60 wpm.  That is a reasonable target for me.  I’d like that number to be even higher eventually.  I’m also going to look for opportunities to take a day – or even a large block of time to devote to learning this skill.  And as soon as I start, I recognize that I’m going to have to slow down and force myself to get it right.  Slowing down is the only way to speed up.  Finding time is impossible, so I will stop looking.  I will have to make the time myself.  Tomorrow looks like a good day to hit the brakes.  ;)

So what do you need to slow down in order to speed up?