You seem to be a fast learner.

Keep up your practice and drop a line here to let us know your progress.

Wow, great to hear that my daily switch experience have encouraged you to try Colemak.

With your speed of 40wpm I think it is ok for you to use Colemak full time. If your computer is sharing between many users I recommend this little Windows program

http://www.mediafire.com/?c84idcqnvt10y2y

originally from Ryan Heise website

http://www.ryanheise.com/colemak.exe

Put it to your usb disk and run it whenever you need to type.

To do tests and drills of typing tutors train you to be a normal secretary. During that time your brain works less, with eyes, hands and muscle memory gets the exercise. 

Using Colemak at your work is the ultimate exercise which you have to think what to type and to type it at the same time. It requires different parts of your brain work simultaneously, and coordinate with each other well.

And that's our final goal of learning the keyboard layout. It blends and works unconsciously with other action and thinking parts of your brain.

Remember how you were fluent with Qwerty a time ago? You only have to visualize your thought (to spell words in your head) and your hands automatically type them.

For the last two days, I had the chance to practice for couple of hour maybe 5 to 6 hours, and I found a nice and very easy to use and customize typing tutor. I was attracted by its nice interface and the punch of helpful statistics that it provides. I used this software to design my own 4 courses. I called them set 1, set 2 , set3, which contain the words that are difficult for me to type. Also, I googled the net for commonly used combinations and letters and I designed a forth lesson and named it commonly used words.  Yesterday, I was typing this lesson at a maximum speed of 48 WPM , but today after creating lesson set 3 of some difficult words, and after practicing it for a while, I suddenly jumped to 56 WPM for the commonly used words lessons. Also, I tried my speed at http://hi-games.net/profile/4468 , and I jumped to  49WPM  for a 5 minutes test,  but I made some typos and I was tired at the end of the day, and a day before this I scored 53 WPM at the same website for a 30 seconds test . In mavis beacon typing tutor I scored also 53 WPM for a long text yesterday, so I guess my average is 52.5 WPM now. This is really great improvement, and I guess I am very close now from crossing the 60WPM barrier.

Here are some images from the new typing software that I have added to my typing tutors collection ( RapidTyping ):

And Here is the most commonly used combination Lesson for which I scored 56WPM:

th he an in er on re ed nd ha at en es of nt ea ti to io le is ou ar as be rt ve the and tha ent ion tio for nde has nce tis oft men ss ee tt ff ll of to in it is be as at so we he by or on do if me my up an go no us am the and for are but not you all any can had her was one our out day get has him his how man new now old see two way who boy did its let put say she too use that with have this will your from they know want been good much some time very when come here just like long make many more only over such take than them well were The of and to in a is that be it by are for was as he with on his at which but from has this will one have not were or all their an I there been many more so when had may today who would time we about after dollars if my other some them being its no only over very you into most than they day even made out first great must these can days every found general her here last new now people public said since still such through under up war well where while years before between country debts good him interest large like make our take upon what

Here are more figures from the new typing tutor that I have added to my collection. The figures show receptively the  typing interface, Lessons that I have created with Lesson set3 being selected and displayed in the right side panel, and statistic related to each letter occurrence in Lesson set 3. There are other statistics available such as the individual letter typos that one has made where each letter's typo percent for a particular lesson is displayed using histograms, time statistics, etc.... If you are interested you can download the software and customize or tailor your own lessons as I have done.

After around two weeks now, where the first 4 to 5 days were intensive training (+8 hours), and the remaining days 2-3 hours  training, I was able today to maintain 60 WPM for 30 seconds , and I could have even scored better if it was not because of the 9 typos I did, which is the tax I should pay when I decide to go faster. Also I easily maintained 50 WPM  for 5 minutes after practicing two extra lessons which I have created (Set 4 and 5). After hitting the 60 WPM, I should now concentrate on accuracy, though I don't have much time left to practice any more cuz my projects have started at the university and I have some quizzes next week. I think I will able to practice at most half and hour every day, and maybe 1 hour in the weekend. I will primarily try to improve my accuracy and speed in the difficult words Course that I have created.

Here is my score:  http://hi-games.net/profile/4468

Here is what do I think of the Colemak layout up to this point of using it:

- Without any doubt, it is comfortable and fast.
- 100% faster than QWRETY.
- Easy to learn.

My problems with this layout up to this moment are:

- Although I have spent a extra time on s, d, g, l keys, they are still problematic keys for me. Before, I was doubting if swapping  the 's' letter and the l  letter should have been done. I read somewhere that there is a lot word that end with ars like 'years' and it is faster to use this roll, which is true, but this alone is not a convincing reason because the percentage of words containing ars is much less than the ones containing as. Through my typing I found that actually there are a lot of words containing ar as well, so i did some investigation ( mini research :) ) and I found that.

I looked at the list of words containing:

- "ars" and I found that there are 624 words http://www.morewords.com/contains/ars/ and most of them are not commonly used.
- "asr"   is found in 2 words http://www.morewords.com/contains/asr/
- "as"  is found in  > 4000. The search website says (4000 or more words found. Only first 4000 shown)  http://www.morewords.com/contains/as/
- "ar" is found in  > 4000. The search website says (4000 or more words found. Only first 4000 shown) http://www.morewords.com/contains/ar/

From the data above, I do see that it is reasonable to exchange the position of the 's' in qwerty with the new one in Colemak. Also I am not sure if changing the 'l' letter has provided a lot of advantages beside moving the typing load to the index finger, which is more agile, and decreasing the rate of using the same finger for typing 'le', for example. So, if 'l' was kept in place as qwerty then to type 'le' as in 'leisure' one has to use the same finger twice, but because of the current position of 'l' and 'e', I think it is faster, at least for me, to type the 'l' and 'e' with the same finger as in 'leader" had the 'l' position been preserved. Maybe my thinking or feeling  towards this argument will change later after the dependence between my middle and index finger decrease and I am able to type le faster in different fingers.

Indeed it is a big progress tony :), but that was a week ago, and now after almost a month of using Colemak I am even faster . I actually had the chance to practice today for 6 hours and my speed jumped by round 3-4 WPM. I am actually now typing comfortably in the range of 60 WPM, and I was able to maintain 76 WPM at Mavis beacon for 6 lines of text, with 100% accuracy. I have tried my max speed at hi-games for 30 seconds just now and I got 73WPM with 2 typos (  http://hi-games.net/profile/4468  ), and I will try to break my 5 minutes test soon when  my hands rest . BTW, I've also checked your test and you improved well this week also, but you still have to beat me in the 30 seconds, and I have to beat you in the 5 minutes now :)

I have tried typing Tutor, and after setting the text to the most difficult with all the characters, numbers and symbols , I may average was 56 WPM, so I am now definitely much faster when typing text alone, but the program is nice since it allows you to practice all the keys equally. I also tried Typing master pro, which is good also.

Here are my results  after todays practice session, and you can see how I jumped.

In Mavis, I don't think that the average is correct because it counts the miss types words, but I always go back and fix them, nevertheless it is always counted. Also at the start of each text, the program gives me full Capital letters line, which slows me a bit, and it averages over all my previous speeds, but I was typing above 60WPM for the last sessions.

After one month 3 days of using Colemak, I was able to score my best race ever at tyeracer for 4.5 lines text. 74WPM. It is really great to see that the practice is paying off. Now I think that I have reached my goal of typing above 60 WPM, I shall focus on my accuracy rather than speed, and I am also thinking of completely  switching from the backspace to the CAPS LOCK, which will delay me by around 4 wpm as I have noticed, especially I am considerably fast using backspace sine I use my ring finger to reach it and I do not have to move my wrist or left as it would be the case if I used my small finger. Also the ring finger is much faster in erasing multiple consecutive typos than the small finger. Thats why barber use this finger along with the thump when cutting hair with scissor. However, I think it is more comfortable to use the CAPS LOCK even though I will sacrifice some speed.

Agreed. Speed ist a subsittute fo accurancy.

Yeah definitely Accuracy and speed are highly correlated. You can not go above 60 WPM if you kept doing a typo every line, and you should teach your muscle fingers to be accurate from the beginning cuz above 70 WPM you have very little  mental control over you finger. My accuracy was not as good as Tony's, as I was concentrating on gaining speed very quickly, however I have improved it in one day by lowering my speed down and  concentrating on typing the correct letter. I actually type in two modes now, the first one is that I hit the keys with a sharp stroke and push it completely on the keyboard. This mode is not very accurate as I do it with out thinking and thats how I trained at the beginning. I started with the colemak lessons and kept repeating each lesson unit I was typing without thinking and my accuracy improved gradually. In the second mode, I barely touch the keys on the keyboard with a soft and gentle strike and I don't push it completely in. At first his mode requires some mental power because I need to focus on not to push the keys hardly, and this gives me space also to think about the key that I am going to dip before I push it. Although this is a bit slower that the first mode, it allows me to increase my accuracy in both modes and it is very gentle on the fingers.

I used Amphetype to increase my accuracy because it allows to repeat the text you are typing if you are below a certain speed and accuracy. At first I set it to repeat the same text all over again when my speed is below 59 WPM and my accuracy is below 97% and it was really quite a challenge as I had to repeat the same text all over again several times to reach the desired accuracy as can be seen from my graph. Now, it is much easier for me to reach that accuracy and my new setting for the program is to repeat the text when the accuracy is below 99% and the speed below 50WPM, and sometimes it is really a challenge to reach such an accuracy even with a relatively low speed.

Wow, you definitely improve incredibly fast. I can see that you use Amphetype to your own liking, and creatively alternate between speed and accuracy drills. That proves a good way to improve your typing and avoiding any plateaus.

@spinifex: TypeFaster is good for learning the layout only, after that Amphetype is very good for fine-tuning your typing skills and practising your difficult words.

After 43 days of irregular practice with focus on rhythm recently, my best burst speed is now
76 WPM for 30 second test, and my best average speed is now 64 WPM for 5 minutes test. Furthermore, I can comfortable around 62 world per minutes, so I consider 62-61 WPM is my, lets say, comfortable average.

http://hi-games.net/profile/4468

My approximate progress curve from the moment I started typing with Colemak's Layout till now is shown in the figure

I am loving hearing your progress with Colemak nimbostratue.

I am touchtyping now, but my speed is approx 20-30 wpm, without bing tested.

How did you see that, on Hi Games?  I didn't realise that most handwritting was only in the 30-40 wpm speed category.  That is a real motivation to press on harder than before.   
It must be quite common for people who are very proficient at QWERTY to become despondent when thy don't match their previous speeds straight away.