How do you correct repetitive typing mistakes?

Question

I find myself making repetitive mistakes typing keywords and sentences in my code comments. I notice its getting worse since my fingers just keep "practicing" incorrect words.

Is there any solution to this? Like a typing tutor designed to help correct repetitive mistakes?

Answer 1

The only way to correct this is to retrain your muscle memory. If it's important enough to take the time, the only way to retrain muscle memory is repetition.

For example, I tend to spell the word "the" as "teh" because of the same scenario you're asking about. To retrain the memory I would just spell the word over and over, starting slowly, striving for 100% accuracy, and increasing the speed. It's the same technique I use to get better at Guitar Hero.

Answer 2

Try a different keyboard layout. That way you start from scratch and completely retrain your fingers. Done properly you should be able to type just as fast as you could with qwerty in a few weeks. For example Dvorak.

</shameless promotion of dvorak>

Answer 3

If this were SMBC, the alt-text drawing thingy would be a giraffe hooker fluttering her eyelashes.

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Try texter from one of LH's editors.

Answer 4

Maybe a book? Mastering Computer Typing: A Painless Course for Beginners and Professionals I hadn't read that, but in amazon has good reviews

Answer 5

One of the best websites to avoid repetitive mistakes is http://www.keybr.com/

It will actually keep track of the letters with which you are making more mistakes and generates typing lessons accordingly.

Answer 6

I would recommend practice on TouchTyping.guru - you can choose there the test with most popular words, so you'll quickly improve your general performance - making a mistake will make this app to generate next words with the letter you were wrong with.

And if you have problems with given letters you can try learning there putting restriction to the number of letters used to form the words. It puts focus on the last letter you choose, and they are also ordered by frequency of occurence in given language.