Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Now, type with your hands

Today on Talking Story, I'm a guest author with a post on learning - thanks to Rosa Say's focus on learning this month. In the post, I talk about why I'm glad I was required to take a typing class in high school. The post is more about learning than specifically about typing, but I've gotten a couple of comments (on and off the blog) about people who wish they'd taken typing (or paid more attention in typing class).

If you are not happy with your current typing skills, all is not lost. I highly recommend the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing as a means to rapidly improve your typing skills. This is a very well done, interactive teaching session that adapts its lessons based on your initial typing ability and progress as you use the product.

You start with a test to establish a baseline and guide you to the appropriate starting point. At each step of the way there is a nice mix of instruction, practice, and testing. And, you can do it in nice little chunks, as required for your schedule. I got it a couple of years ago, at the advice of David Allen, and improved my accuracy while improving my typing speed by about 25%.

Or, you could always use the speech-to-text product I mentioned in my last post. But I still think typing is a foundational skill in today's environment.

If you try out (or have tried) "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing", I'd love to hear how you like it.

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Fresh Gear: Type with your mouth

A few months ago, I purchased a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you're not familiar with it, Dragon is a software product that allows you to talk to your computer, then types what you say.

When I began considering NaturallySpeaking, I needed to create a talk track for some PowerPoint slides. I found that when I sat down to type speaker notes something was lost from the way that I normally presented the material. To help make my speaker notes more conversational, I picked up a copy of NaturallySpeaking.

At first, I was a little skeptical, thinking, "Is this thing really going to work? After all I used to have a Newton and it never recognized my handwriting?" Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try.

I must say, I have been very pleased with the results. I haven't used the product that often, but there are certain circumstances in which I feel typing stifles my creative flow. In those situations (usually involving presentations) I fire up NaturallySpeaking, and start talking. And, I find I'm beginning to use it more often.

When you first install the product, you calibrate your headset microphone (one is included, but I've purchased a Logitech one that is smaller for travel, which I also use with Skype). You then go through a brief training session in which to read some sample text so the program can get used to hearing you speak. It then creates a user specific profile so that they can learn from you and get better or recognizing your speech over time. Even during the initial usage period, I've found NaturallySpeaking to be very accurate, and it gets better over time.

Now I can type pretty quickly, but I find I can produce a heck of a lot more text with NaturallySpeaking than I can in the same period of time typing of course, more is not always better, but I can't help think how much easier it would have been to write those papers in high school if I'd had NaturallySpeaking.

After a couple of sessions of using the product, you get used to saying punctuation words like "comma" and "new paragraph" as you speak, and it becomes very easy to remember all of the editing commands and other tools that are built in to NaturallySpeaking. By using the product's interface to perform the corrections, you help it improve its accuracy over time.

So, if you are a frustrated, hunt and peck typist (or you just want to let your hair down and start talking to let your muse flow) you might want to take a look at Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

By the way, this whole post was written in about eight minutes using NaturallySpeaking. And the only manual editing I did was the insertion of the hyperlinks and the image. I'm sure there's a way to do that with a NaturallySpeaking, but I have only really started using the product in the last couple of weeks and there are a whole host of commands I haven't even tried to figure out yet.

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Get Focused

Dave Cheong has a great write up in his latest post, 18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work. He's created a nice blend of how to deal with physical and virtual distractions in the workplace.

The one I have trouble with is the first one, write out a daily task list and plan your day. To be more precise, my problem is sticking to the task list. The downside of my curiosity is my ability to quickly become enamored by a new idea, concept, fun project, etc.

Do you have this "distracted by shiny objects" tendency, too? If so, I'd love to hear your secrets for dealing with this challenge.

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Good listening

I have been re-stocking my collection of audiobooks, preparing for some reading via my iPod on my upcoming trips. HeadphonelookingIf, like me, you're fond of blending audiobooks into your reading list, I've got a great resource for you.

I just found a great list of business audiobooks on John Richardson's Success Begins Today blog. I've read or heard about half of the stuff on John's list, so I'm thinking he and I have compatible reading interests - so I've just bought & downloaded a few new ones. John has been doing a lot of audiobook listening as part of his cool "MBA On The Run" program that I wrote about a while back (Manage by running around, 28 April, 2006).

Incidentally, if you decide to get your audio fix via Audible.com, I recommend either the Audible Gold or Platinum subscription plan that they offer - it's very cost-effective if you listen to books regularly, because they include book credits. You can use a credit to get any book they offer, and if you choose expensive titles you'll easily make up for the cost of your subscription. For example, I buy a lot of new or recent releases through Audible and the monthly subscription cost is cheaper than buying the hard copy of the book, and much cheaper than the audio version of the book.

Also, don't forget the tip I shared previously about how to speed up your audiobooks on iPods.

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Living in a box

Having spent a lot of time in software companies, I'm familiar with a concept called "time boxing" to help prevent software development projects from going on forever. I didn't realize I have been using a sort of "time box" approach in my personal projects, until I read Dave Cheong's write-up about doing just that.

Dave's description of how to use time boxing in the context of Getting Things Done (GTD) is excellent in two ways. One, it is a good articulation of what "time boxing" means. Two, Dave does a phenomenal job of explaining how to use time boxing to increase your focus, prevent time-consuming rat holes, and take better control of your day.

I've found this approach to be very useful to help me box in things that take on a life of their own - like online research. I can get lost in the internet if I'm not careful.. By turning my research into a closed-ended activity, time boxing helps me focus on what I really need to learn and cuts me off at a predetermined time.

If you combine this with a timer of some kind (either on your computer, or a kitchen timer on your desk) you can increase the likelihood of getting your own personal projects done on time and under budget.

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