Three weeks ago I decided to bit the bullet and get an ergonomic keyboard. Specifically I bought an Ergodox EZ.
I’ve always thought about myself as being able to type well with 10 fingers, but now that my typing skills are being tested, I realize that over time I’ve developed some very bad typing habits:
- when typing on my MacBook my right hand has left the home row entirely. It’s mostly located around the arrow keys, shift, enter and backspace
- because of my modified position my left hand reaches to many keys my right hand usually should be typing.
I’ve got my ErgoDox three days ago and have been using it at home for maybe 8 hours now, but so far I’m making great progress at unlearning my previous typing habits. Let see how I feel a week in, as I’m going to start using the keyboard at work starting Monday.
I’ll update the post as time goes by :)
Update 04/02/18
What I’m really loving about the ErgoDox is that it’s programmable. I can have the identical keyboard on different computers. Of course this forces me to get the other keyboard shortcuts in sync too, but that’s a separate issue.
Anyways, here’s a link to my v0.1.8 ErgoDox configuration. I’ll post new ones as I adjust the layout.
Update 04/07/18
One week past, and I’m probably in the tricky phase right now. Regular typing works ok, programming is really tricky right now because reaching rare characters like parathesis etc. requires me to use more and more combinations.
Whenever I have to lift a hand to reach for the mouse I’m completly lost. My mind keeps telling me that I need both hands on the keyboard now, and having just one confuses me.
Also I’ve entered the painful area of re-training my muscle memory for application specific keyboard shortcuts. Chrome, VSCode, NoMachine, every GUI I’ve ever worked with seems different now.
Watching me use any program must be very painful at the moment and I really hope that I leave this area soonish.
Update 04/13/18
I’m much better at typing now now - most of the time anyways. Also I got my new key caps, and typing on this beautiful keyboard is much more fun.