Tiny Triumphant Moments

Practicing everything makes everything a little better each time!

I attended Session 4 of Project Steno class last night, and it went remarkably smoothly. I was far more accurate than in previous sessions. Occasionally, from time to time, I was not *thinking* about writing; I was just writing. I was just in the zone, my fingers reacting as they should, according to what I’d practiced.

Of course, these moments are few and far between — and the second I giddily notice I’m in the zone, instantly, I fall out of the zone because I start thinking about what word I just heard and where that key is and wondering why the heck my fingers are suddenly all over the place?! (Expletives deleted.)

I credit these results to the amount and quality of practice I’ve been putting in all week and to adopting some advice I was given independently from a few different sources (including Nancy Varallo and Allie Hall) about the value of practicing “toggles.” While I’m practicing, when I write the wrong thing (for example, /TKOEPB when I meant to write /TKOUPB), I pause the dictation and write the correct stroke, followed by another correct stroke that either rhymes with it or uses a slightly different vowel combination, for example /TKOUPB/TOUPB or /TKOUPB/TKEUPB and toggle those two strokes for about a minute. Then, I turn the dictation back on and keep going.

Another change I made during practice this week: I only spent one day reviewing the Week 1 through 3 material. I spent the rest of the time going through the Week 4 material ahead of the Week 4 lesson. Occasionally, I would play a Week 2 or Week 3 dictation, just to feel competent — and then I’d go back to the Week 4 material. I’m trusting myself to remember the earlier lessons instead of feeling the need to repeat them all for several days.

I’m also relaxing more. The familiarity that comes with having experienced two-thirds of the Project Steno classes makes it easier to perform in that class because I know what to expect.

One other new and interesting experience this week: I experienced my first moment of speaking up for myself to protect my ability to take down the record! The instructor increased the pace of dictation to the point where I was not able to keep up. So I spoke up. “It’s getting a little fast,” I said. I want to credit the instructor for having invited us to interrupt and let her know if she was going too fast. Without that invitation, I doubt I would have said anything. I would just have “sucked it up” and did my best to manage. However, from my experience working with reporters, I know that having the chutzpah to interrupt when necessary is a skill I will most definitely require in the real world. Of course, that will have to be tempered with the judgment of when not to interrupt, but as for everything else — practice is a good thing.