At the beginning of this year I decided that I would learn an alternate keyboard layout because I was hard stuck with ~100 WPM and my wrists were starting to hurt a bit. I choose to go with Colemak, as it is advertised to be more comfortable compared to QWERTY, and some letters are at the same spot in QWERTY, which kinda makes it easier to switch to.

I did do some typing tests with Colemak since that day, though I wasn't fully committing myself into it, until just recently. In 14/12/2024, I reached the final character on the typing tutor platform <keybr.com> using the Colemak layout over the span of 8 days (check out my profile.).

I switched to Colemak entirely since then. It didn't go too well at first. I kept getting mixed up with different layouts due to my muscle memory. It had been a week since then and I do feel like my accuracy is getting better gradually. People said that I could take up to three months to reach my old WPM so I am taking my time here.

Experience

Colemak puts frequently used letters on the home row, which claims to make your typing experience more comfortable. I have been able to feel that sense of comfort so far.

I don't see much people praising Colemak for the speed you can achieve with it though. Currently, I am stuck at 40 WPM, which is somewhat acceptable.

It's still early to tell anything more than that. Perhaps I should write a follow-up post in the future.