There’s a reason why I started this blog. It took me a while to remember that reason.
I started this blog as a place to document what I am doing to grow, practice my skills, and increase in productivity as a maker.
A while back, I wrote a post about my first guide, which was a guide about increasing my typing speed.
I did actually attempt to write faster. I spent about a week doing it. But I lost interest and moved on.
Since then, I never recovered the vision that I once had. The vision that I would improve all of the individual skills that a maker needs - programming, design, marketing, copy-writing, SEO, content, etc.
I have indeed studied all of these topics deeply. But, I’ve never documented it, and there’s always more to learn.
So, why was my first guide about typing faster? Typing is the back-bone of a maker. It’s what impacts every single part of each skill. If you type faster, you can program faster (and with less error), you can write more content in less time, and you can iterate faster on ideas and feedback.
By being able to type faster, I can make faster. It’s just that simple. Being able to make faster means I can make more products in less time, and with less error. That sounds like a worthy investment.
But, here’s the catch.
It takes a lot of hard and not very romantic work. It’s not sexy, it’s not fun, and it’s not always successful. It’s deliberate practice, and it’s something that is necessary to growth for someone who wants to hone their craft.
Deliberate Practice
For those of you who may not know, deliberate practice is the fancy scientific name for putting in the work.
It’s sitting down, putting in the reps, writing the words, swinging the clubs, over and over and over again.
It’s consistent, meditated, tracked, and vision oriented. It’s focused around a specific skill that you are trying to develop.
In this case, I am trying to become a better maker. One of the ways to become a better maker is to become a better writer/programmer/marketer. One of the core pieces to that puzzle is being able to type correctly, quickly.
Quite literally, if I am able to type twice as fast, I can ship twice as fast. Even at the same skill level that I am at now (which is pretty low, if you ask me).
The great thing about deliberate practice is that it works for learning just about everything. Putting in a smallish amount of time learning something every day over a long period of time turns into mastery and perfection.
I want to be able to write a 2000 work blog post in a day. I want to be able to write a successful e-book in a week. I want to know my keyboard so well that I look like I am a professional hacker. I want to be able to code error free, and in the fastest way possible.
When it comes to coding, coding faster may mean coding better, but luckily that’s just another bout of deliberate practice.
My Challenge
The challenge I have for myself is to spend at least a half-hour every day practicing typing until I can hit 100 WPM consistently.
I am going to be studying posture, correct techniques, and hacks that people use to type fast. I’ll be reading books, watching YouTube videos, and putting in the work.
I’d really like to live-stream my experience. I think it would be cool for people to see me putting in the work everyday, while at the same time watching me do something that’s not fun or sexy. They may be confused, but we know the goal, and we know the vision.
This is just step one.
Day one.