In 2020, which seems like forever ago, I set out on a quest to type faster. I chose to do this for several reasons. First, I worked at the time as a writer, so typing faster meant I could get my assignments done more quickly. Second, it seemed like something I could dedicate myself to each day and see actual progress. So, I stared spending 10 to 20 minutes every day on monkeytype practicing. I attempted to change to a few different keyboard layouts, but none of those really stuck around.

For almost 4 years, I practiced my typing every single day. And I improved a lot. I went from around 40 WPM to about 100 WPM on average. I’m never going to set world records or anything, I make too many mistakes for that, but I was pretty proud of myself.

monkeytype

But for some reason, I don’t practice as much as I used to. I think part of it is that when I got my Dactyl my progress slowed way down. I got to around 70 WPM on the split layout and I didn’t move up from that. My accuracy also suffered severely. I went from 97% to 90%, which is a huge drop. Slowly, I started to practice less, when I really should have practiced more.

I love my Dactyl, but I’m not as good a typist on it as I was before when I used a traditional board. I could switch back. Goodness knows, I have enough keyboards around my house. I could go back to any of them, and I would probably get right back up to 100 WPM and 97% accuracy in a few weeks. But, as I said, I love my Dactyl. I don’t want to switch. So, that means more practice.

I’ve turned on hard mode on monkeytype. This means if I make a mistake the test fails and it’s registered as an unfinished test. I’m also going to dedicate myself to 10 to 20 minutes every day, just like when I made so much progress all that time ago. Really, I’m not worried about speed improvements right away. That will come. I have to stop making so many mistaken key presses. My biggest one, for whatever reason, is the letter I. I can’t seem to consistently get it to capitalize when it stands alone. I’m also missing key presses for some reason, when that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m thinking I might need to go to some lighter switches, but I’ll see if some practice can make it better first. I like the box purples I have now, and I don’t care to switch.

This isn’t a huge deal. Most people can’t type 70 WPM or more. But I miss my faster, more accurate typing. And I want to get back into writing fiction again, and being a better typist will make that easier and more enjoyable.

This is day 18 of Blaugust 2025.