Good News: I Know A Trick For Typing Faster

(Typed this in 2007. I have fond memories of that typing class and writing this. Guess this is a class that no longer exists.)

Have a seat now while Uncle Scott tell you a story about a day - yes, children, such a day existed - before ipods and iphones and bluetooth and other such things people stuck in their ears.

Once upon a time, back around 1989 or 1990 as I was in my final two years of college, I took a required typing class. 
I forget if it was required because I entered college as a computer programmer or because I left it a newspaper reporter. 

Either way back then I was running the college newspaper and had been writing my quirky columns and pieces like this (look out for Gumby!) and this (How to Sleep Until Noon) for years so my typing speed was already in the 45 words per minute range.

I mention this because I had noticed, by the time class started, some direct correlations between listening to music and typing speed, namely the faster the music the faster the typing.

This was also, and this too is foreshadowing, around the time I was listening to lots of punk music.

So enough preface, lets get to the meat of the story or, for you vegetarians, the salad
of the story? Anyway...

So there were about 30 of us and the teacher was typically boring and wanted us to
type various things and we'd be timed and did I mention that it was like time stopped
and the 90 minute class seemed like 5 hours?

It was in the second or third week when I made a request: Can I listen to my walkman (this was
when they were just tapes, not yet cds) while I typed and he waved his hand to indicate
sure, whatever.

He had no idea what he had just begun....
(cue ominous music)

So I listened to my music -  fast punk and rock. - and the faster the music the higher I scored on the music tests.

Others in class noticed this and soon they too were wearing headphones and typing faster.

On the one hand the instructor seemed pleased: His students were making great strides in
improving their typing speed. If they were to go on to data entry jobs at, say, a hospital they
would do great. 


There was just one problem: Whenever he had something to say he would have to wait,
patiently at first then less patient over time, for the students to take off their headphones
so we could hear what he was trying to tell us.

At one point, if memory serves, he was talking about banning the headphones from his 
classroom. But we talked him into letting us use the headphones and music for the final, reminding
him it might look bad, not to mention reflect poorly on all of us, if our typing speeds
suddenly dropped.

So he relented and we typed our butts off.

I was reminded of all of this at my current data entry job which, unlike my last few data
entry jobs, lets employees listen to music while they work. This means for happier employees,
and not just because it gives folks like myself the chance - as I mentioned in this Monday
piece - to listen to new music while working. If I'm feeling sleepy I can put on some fast
music but if I need to concentrate or block out distracting talkers sitting nearby I can put
on something more like a relaxing white noise type of thing.

Thus I decided it was time to share the good news of my typing tip. I hope it helps you.

note: the author of this piece is not responsible for any problems you have as a result of using
any of the information in this piece.