These days more people than ever spend their days reading and writing. The reason, of course, is email. You get email, you send email—wax on, wax off.
So as a productivity booster, two of the smartest investments you can make are to learn to read faster and write faster.
Learning to read faster is easy: read more. The more you read, the faster you get. Grab something you enjoy reading and thank your brain for the way its wired.
Writing faster, on the other hand, requires two separate skills: Putting your thoughts in order to be put down on the page, and the physical task of transferring your thoughts from your brain to the page. The first part, putting your thoughts in order, is the reason we have schools. If you find yourself lacking there, taking a writing class would be a good idea.
The second part requires more drudgery. It even requires something as completely unsexy as to learn to type. No, no, don’t go away. Really, think about it: How long does it take you to write an email—or a blog post, or a TPS report? If you learned to type you could cut that time way down.
I know, I know. Learning to type. The thought itself brings memories of typing classes in high school, of utter boredom at the sheer mindlessness of it all, of having bad skin, and not having a date for the prom.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can learn to type without buying any software, reading any books, or having to be under the pig-eyed stare of the school football coach.
You only need to know one thing: The home row. Really.
Look at your keyboard. ASDF and JKL; are the home row. Put your fingers on the home row and your thumbs on the space bar. Great. Now you’re in position. Feel the nubs on two of the keys with your fingers. They let you know when your fingers are in the right place. Now keep your fingers on the home row and only move the finger that is closest to the key you want to type, then return that finger to the home row. Got it?
At first it’ll be frustrating to bend your fingers this way, but trust me, it becomes second nature very quickly. And once each key is in your muscle memory, you can focus on the thoughts you’re conveying instead of the mechanics of hitting keys—a massive win.
After a couple of days you’ll be touch typing and your speed will drastically improve. It really is that simple. Just a little determination and fast typing is yours for the asking.