When I was a teenager I was translating a book and sometimes it was a li’l boring so I’d put on a record (Version 2.0 by Garbage) and it’d feel like the exact same time, doing my goal of four pages, subjectively, but looking at my watch, doing it with music on had taken double the time.
Similarly, using the on screen tablet keyboard doesn’t feel that much slower than using a plugged-in keyboard; if I don’t time myself it feels like it takes around the same amount of time.
It’s easy to get fooled around how much time stuff takes.
One of my bad boardgame experiences was when the venue was close to closing, we were playing a three player game and one guy was like “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” whenever it was one of our turns, which only made it feel more stressful since I had to start over my thinking everytime he shouted “hurry”, but then when it was his turn he slowed way down. I know, because it was a 3p game so while I can’t get an accurate estimation of the time I was taking on my turns, I could compare the time the other two players were taking and the impatient hurry-hurry guy was way slower than the more polite and normal guy who the hurry-hurry guy was trying to rush. (My takeaway there is that we’re either using a board game timer or every one can shut up and chill and let people take their time. We usually do the second of those two options but I’m OK with either. What I’m not OK with is a slowpoke who thinks they’re Speedy Gonzales and is rushing everyone else.)
This is something that usability studies also have shown. People think that a particular UI that they find engaging or challenging is way faster than a more normal–but–tedious-looking UI when in reality they are spending way more time completing their tasks.
I’m grateful I was made aware of this super odd phenomenon so early in life. Doing this quickly isn’t necessarily the most important thing but I wanna spend my time deliberately and efficiently so that I get more time for rest.
This also means having to consciouly remember to plug the keyboard in even though the OSK “feels” like it’s almost as fast. I can save hours that I didn’t even know I was spending.