I’m sure it’s psychological, just one of those quirks, but whenever I work with a spreadsheet, I have to take a deep breath. I tell myself that I’m typing characters on a keyboard just as I am when I type words, but that doesn’t help. 

I think it all goes back to the ancient typing class I took in high school. It was a last-minute elective, and still one of the most valuable classes I’ve ever taken. But for some reason (senioritis?) I dropped it when we came to the numbers section. It was my last class of the day and I didn’t need it to graduate.

It was a bad decision. With a few weeks of numbers practice — and a few missed phone calls with friends (don’t know what else I was doing after those early dismissals) — I would have been able to touch-type numbers as quickly as I do letters. 

Who knows? Staying in that class might have changed my entire career trajectory. 

But I doubt it.