I have been typing more and more each day with the Colemak-DH layout on my new Planck keyboard. I basically know where all the keys are, but my typing is laborious and slow. I have to think very hard to type every word. At my best right now, I make a plan for the word I will type next, then try to execute that plan without making too many errors. At worst, I look down at the keyboard and hunt and peck.

I remember when learning QWERTY that, after learning where all the letters were, I started to memorize certain patterns to type particular words or parts of words. In other words, I chunked it. Typing fast was a matter of stringing along series of predefined multi-key movements which acted like mental macros.

I see myself at the very beginning of the chunking process right now. It will take a lot more practice to get fast, but I plan to stick with it; hopefully it will be worth it in the long run. If I can type more efficiently I believe I will incur less RSI going forward. That is my main goal in switching keyboards and layouts.