Enable sticky keys on your computer
Before the invention of the modern keyboard layout in 1874, typewriter keyboards consisted of a single long line of keys — one for each unicode character — snaking over the horizon.
Finding typists with the required athletic ability was hard and emojis were rarely used for fear of missing print deadlines.
All this changed when a entrepreneurial newspaper editor from Wisconsin designed a new keyboard layout. That man's name? You guessed it, Reginald D. Qwerty.
His layout remains the default to this day, and while it has undoubtedly improved the working conditions of typists, it remains sub-optimal.
Some people take the efficiency of their keyboard very seriously, lubricating the keys, remapping the keys so their fingers travel less, or even building their own keyboard.
For those of us who don't have time to become this generations Reginald D. Qwerty — there is still a small win to be had.
You can reduce the strain on your pinky fingers and shave nanoseconds off your typing speed by enabling sticky keys.
What is sticky keys?
Sticky keys is an accessibility setting that allows modifier keys to be set without having to hold them down.
The most notable of these is the shift key for typing a capital letter. You'll likely be familiar with how sticky keys work with the shift key on a smartphone.
On a typical computer keyboard, to capitalize a letter, you have to hold down the shift key while you type.
On a smartphone's virtual keyboard, you press the shift key once, and then the next letter you press will be capitalized.
With sticky keys enabled we no longer need to strain our little finger to hold down the shift key when we type.
The same holds true for the command key for copying and pasting and other such actions.
Sticky keys took me about a day to get used to and I already prefer it to the old ways — so I hereby recommend it as a Practical Betterment.
How to enable sticky keys?
On MacOS you can enable sticky keys like so:
- Open
System Settings - Navigate to
Accessibility - Under the
Motorheading clickKeyboard - Then toggle
Sticky Keyson. - Click the little
iicon to access additional settings — including switching off the sound it makes!
I don't have a windows computer, or a chrome book, but I looked it up and it seems to be the same basic set of steps.