I have other things to talk about besides polyphasic sleep. One of those other things is the Dvorak Keyboard Layout.
I consider my switch to the Dvorak layout to be the first of my self improvement initiatives. Here’s a bit of background: the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is an alternative to the more common QWERTY keyboard layout. It’s just another way of positioning keys on a keyboard. Most people are aware that QWERTY was designed to prevent typewriter keys from jamming at the ribbon. The designers did not have typing speed or efficiency in mind, and may have even intentionally slowed typists down to prevent jamming. By contrast, the Dvorak layout was designed with specific typing principles in mind (I won’t go into them here) with the overall goal of increasing typing speed and accuracy. There is some controvery over the claim that the Dvorak layout increases typing speeds, but while some claim Dvorak is faster and others claim it’s no better than QWERTY, I have yet to see anyone put forth the claim that it’s worse.
So why not use Dvorak? The major downside is that every keyboard everywhere you go will be in QWERTY layout. However, this isn’t nearly as big of a downside as the naysayers will have you think. I can type equally well in Dvorak or QWERTY now, and it only takes a few minutes to mentally adjust. I would compare it to knowing two programming languages; it’s not really that hard to use them both regularly. There is also the actual time to learn the layout. For me, it took about a week of casual use. On the first day I did some drills online to help me memorize the key locations, but after that I was only doing my normal activities such as chatting. One could probably adapt much more quickly by practicing. After that first week speed increases gradually.
It’s difficult to say if the Dvorak layout increases my typing speed. However, it definitely increases my typing comfort, which is actually far more important if you do a lot of typing throughout the day. When I switch from QWERTY to Dvorak I’m always amazed at how stationary my hands and fingers are.
