Early last year, I decided to severely impact my productivity in the hopes that it would provide benefits in the long term. Here is my story.

I am a programmer and I have been since I was a kid. I wrote my first line of BASIC code, sitting with my Grandpa in Walled Lake, MI when I was about 12. I quickly got hooked. I became deeply fascinated by computers and programming. There was something awe-inspiring about being able to tell a computer to do something, then watch it happen before my eyes. I wrote lots of little BASIC programs. My favorite was the infinite-loop, screen color flash program. On several occasions while in middle school, I would deploy it to a bunch of computers at school and watch the teachers scramble to figure out why all hell was breaking loose in the lab. I found that quite entertaining.

From there I branched out to C++ and HTML in my high-school years. I was quick to pick up new languages and enjoyed learning as much as I could. It was during this time that I realized that programming would be a significant part of my life. Soon after, I was in college at Western Michigan University studying in the Computer Information Systems program and learning Java, Visual Basic, and further refining my web development skills. After college and to present day, I’ve studied technologies and languages like PHP, Force.com, Ruby, Linux, C, Haskell and Node.js. This has been lots and lots of programming…and typing.

While in school, I had several keyboard (typing) classes. I don’t remember them well, but I remember that I found them boring. I already knew computers by the time I took these classes and since typewriters ceased to exist at this point, “Keyboarding” was a computer class. I probably felt that the subject matter was below me. I did what I needed to do to get a passing grade, but I had already taught myself to type through my programming adventures. I continued to type the way I taught myself. After all, I was typing faster than most of the other kids in the class. Why would I care about things like the “home row” and why would I ever need to look at the screen?

This turned out to cause me huge problems down the road.

After college and as my career progressed, I began to work with a lot of talented programmers. As part of my continued learning, I make a point to observe the behaviors and patterns of those that are highly skilled to try to understand what makes them great at what they do. One observation that I have made  is that not all, but a lot of these people all seemed to type faster than me. I don’t think this is what made them great programmers, but it sure made them more productive. Either way, I took note.

I began to examine the way that I typed.

Despite what would probably be deemed as poor technique, I could type at a fair pace. I had been typing for so long that my homegrown typing style wasn’t holding me back too much. I’d mastered it. I wouldn’t call it a “hunt and peck” method, but my hands moved around a lot. They were almost never on the keyboard. My eyes were also never on the screen. That was probably the most concerning trait. I would make mistakes in my typing but would miss them and continue typing on. This led to extra proofreading and review after I had finished typing.

What finally made me take action was the day that I realized that the speed in which I could type using this style had hit a max…probably a long time ago. The way in which my hands moved and the fact that I couldn’t type without looking at the keyboard prevented me from getting any faster. I wanted to get faster. Getting faster meant that I would be more a more productive programmer. I am a total perfectionist and the moment that I realized that I was allowing myself to remain so inefficient, I knew it had to be fixed.

So right then and there, some time last January, I made the commitment to teach myself how to properly type. I knew it was going to be painful. After all, I had been doing it my way for close to 20 years. This was going to be a long road. It was also going to be a huge risk. I was willingly cutting my typing productivity in half in hopes that I would be able to eventually type faster than I currently could. I had no idea how long it was going to take either.

I jumped right in. I found a couple of really nice websites that had online tutorials that taught me the basics. I probably typed “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” a hundred times. I practiced as much as I could. I forced myself to type my emails using proper technique no matter how slow I was going. I began programming this way. It was very frustrating especially since I knew that I could jump right back into my old habits and be cranking out emails and programs just like I used to. I thought about quitting several times. I’d catch myself slipping back into my old ways, feeling how much more natural it felt, and wonder why I was doing this to myself and whether it was really going to be worth it.

Instead of allowing myself to fail, I stuck with the plan.

Its now been a year and I have to say it was one of the best decisions of my professional life. I feel that I am pretty close to my original speed and I’m still getting faster every day. With as much as I type, in a couple of months, I’m guessing that I will surpass my previous typing speed. This was the ultimate goal. On top of that, I’ve even found that there were some unintentional benefits. I’m noticing that my posture is improved and that my neck and back feel better after 10-hour coding benders. It has turned out to be a great decision.

I guess there is a 2-part moral to this story: It’s never too late to change something about yourself that you don’t like. It may not be easy, but things that are worth doing usually aren’t.