I’ve stuck with my month of Dvorak, doing the tutorials for one week and completely switching for the next three weeks. I’m happy to stay that I’ll be sticking with the new layout.

I learned quite a bit that should be helpful to others considering a switch, and I’d like to share some of that here.

Should I Switch My Layout?

This is a multiple choice question. How much suffering do you enjoy? Do you have an actual need to switch, such as wrist pain?

I won’t kid you, this is an undertaking. While I’ve recovered to around 60wpm after two months of effort, it will be some time before I’m back to 100wpm. And for the first couple weeks, it was not unlike typing with one finger to do my work (try it out for a minute and see what it’s like).

In general, if you meet these criteria, you may want to make the switch:

• You program for a living, experience wrist pain, have short fingers, or general trouble reaching keys while typing in standard QWERTY
• You have some extra time to burn
• You have a two month period with no major computer projects

If you fall in this group, you should probably stick with what you have:

• You think switching will improve your typing speed (studies say it won’t, unless your last name is Blackburn)
• You travel and use other people’s computers
• Other users share your computer
• You aren’t willing to deal with quirks or frustration

Which Layout Should I Switch To?

In general, if you aren’t into programming, you’ll want to stick with dvorak or colemak.  Which one? I personally preferred dvorak, but not because it’s more efficient (colemak is a mere 2-5% better), it was one of preference.

Dvorak overview:

• Exists on windows, mac, and linux (just change your settings)
• Works well for programmers
• Makes sense – logical arrangement of vowels and consonants
• Works with most all windows software

Colemak overview:

• Have to build or download a layout and install it
• Much closer to qwerty – faster to learn for qwerty typists
• Slightly more efficient, but not enough to grouse
• Suffers more quirks/bugs with software

If you are a C-style programmer, you’ll want to look at http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/index.html or d-dvorak.

If you are a web developer or a perl/php style programmer, you may want to consider making your own, like I did.

What Should I Expect After I Switch?

Assuming you do a tutorial for at least a month before switching (see below), you can expect…

• about a week of horrible suffering
• another two weeks where you ask once a day, “why am I doing this?”
• general typing satisfaction after one month
• you will type slower for many months

You can expect an instant increase in comfort and decrease in typing related pain.

You will instantly loose the ability to type in qwerty, which will not come back for several months after the switch, so returning to qwerty in moments of desperation or trying to use someone elses computer will only make it even more frustrating.

You will encounter occasional quirks:

• Infrequently, programs (like flash) don’t obey the layout and map back to qwerty (you can overcome this by purchasing a dvorak hardwired keyboard)
• Emacs requires a special configuration to work.
• Windows forgets-happens to me at least once a month and I have to reboot to fix it

If you don’t start with a tutorial before you switch, expect to fail in less than a week in a miserable state of frustration.

How Do I Succeed and Avoid Loosing My Mind?

You must do these:

• Start with a tutorial, use a tutorial, dear God, a tutorial! For 30 minutes a day, at least two weeks before you switch.
• Turn off the distractions
• Have at least two weeks with no major deadlines, stressful life issues, or major commitments to switch over.
• Commit yourself fully! Once you switch, there is no going back for a while. So do your tut every day and switch only when you are completely ready
• Never use qwerty during the first month of your switch – I can’t stress that enough
• Print the dvorak layout and keep it very close to your monitor. I also colored mine with highlighters for each finger.

You should do these:

• Start your switch over a holiday or vacation
• Spend at least 30 days on the tutorial before you switch
• Use two physically different keyboards during your tutorial period. Preferably an ergonomic for your dvorak work and a brick for your qwerty. The keyboard serves as a mental anchor for the layout.
• Take frequent breaks.
• When the keys all move without permisson and don’t leave a forwarding address(happened to me daily at first), take a break, then do the tutorial again for a few minutes, and then restart your work.

You may want to do these:

• If you like playing with computers, build your own layout. I highly recommend switching U and I, as this increases the efficiency of dvorak considerably (study)
• Consider starting with a partial swap. Or simply switching a couple of keys every few weeks. This can improve efficiency considerably without such a monumental effort.
• If you travel or use multiple computers, buy an ezreach keyboard — you will not be able to switch between qwerty and dvorak mentally for some time, but you can carry one of these boys everywhere — they are very light and small
• Slow down… I found that the slower I typed at first, the faster things got done. Trying to rush seemed to confuse things until I actually couldn’t remember where any keys were and just started mashing random letters. Working slowly allowed my brain time to process and avoided mucking the gears.