Study Routine

 Steno: New Practice Routine

I’m in need of a new practice routine. Obviously, I haven’t been doing too badly (I’ve gone from 40 WPM to 120 WPM in just three months) but my last few QA speed tests took longer than they should have.

I think I need to make warming up a priority every day before I get on the machine. I definitely notice a difference when I skip a warm-up, and lately, I haven’t been doing one at all. I’ve still been able to pass my 100 WPM speed tests without warming up, but I’d like to get my 120s out of the way before December.

I want to start doing two practice sessions a day: one in the morning and one in the evening, with each session lasting 1–2 hours. Ideally, a typical session would look something like this:

Warm-up — 30 minutes

• Common words

• New briefs

• Numbers

Main practice

• 140 WPM (speed)

• 60/80 ( accuracy)

• 120 WPM (goal speed)

• 160 WPM ( push)

• 140 WPM ( speed)

Warm-down

• Numbers

• New briefs

There are a few other things I’d like to focus on during these sessions. My biggest problem areas right now are addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and ages, so I want to incorporate more number practice into both my warm-up and warm-down. I also found a new chart for directional briefs that I’d like to work into the routine as well.