I know this is an ancient comment, but I have some motivational sentiment to share:
It’s been forever since I switched, but back when I was using QWERTY I had a pretty sad 40 WPM (words per minute); to be fair, I never put a conscious effort into typing fast. A friend of mine, who was very proud of her typing ability, typed up to 60-80 WPM, also on QWERTY.
Then, I decided to learn Colemak. I remember that I was taking a longish holiday, so I had a couple weeks to get comfortable before my speed mattered. In these weeks I managed memorize the layout and get around 30 WPM in bursts, but I was already much more comfortable and using proper touch-typing.
In the time after this my speed increased and increased (it really has been a while, so I can’t give specific times). Eventually I remember hitting a consistent 60 WPM and being super psyched.
Then, maybe six months after starting out, I realized I could type 100 WPM. Then 120. Today, 150 (though not for longer periods of time) WPM. My speed has effectively tripled.
I don’t give Colemak alone full credit for this. Part of it is that I used Colemak as an opportunity to learn the keys properly (I didn’t tape over the physical keys, so I had to memorize them, and thus properly learned touch typing), and that I started putting in a conscious effort into typing fast. But learning Colemak (Dreymar’s Colemak-CAWS and Extend to be specific) has certainly been one of my better decisions. I can highly recommend :P
I know this is an ancient comment, but I have some motivational sentiment to share:
It’s been forever since I switched, but back when I was using QWERTY I had a pretty sad 40 WPM (words per minute); to be fair, I never put a conscious effort into typing fast. A friend of mine, who was very proud of her typing ability, typed up to 60-80 WPM, also on QWERTY.
Then, I decided to learn Colemak. I remember that I was taking a longish holiday, so I had a couple weeks to get comfortable before my speed mattered. In these weeks I managed memorize the layout and get around 30 WPM in bursts, but I was already much more comfortable and using proper touch-typing.
In the time after this my speed increased and increased (it really has been a while, so I can’t give specific times). Eventually I remember hitting a consistent 60 WPM and being super psyched.
Then, maybe six months after starting out, I realized I could type 100 WPM. Then 120. Today, 150 (though not for longer periods of time) WPM. My speed has effectively tripled.
I don’t give Colemak alone full credit for this. Part of it is that I used Colemak as an opportunity to learn the keys properly (I didn’t tape over the physical keys, so I had to memorize them, and thus properly learned touch typing), and that I started putting in a conscious effort into typing fast. But learning Colemak (Dreymar’s Colemak-CAWS and Extend to be specific) has certainly been one of my better decisions. I can highly recommend :P