Honestly if you can already touchtype an ortho isn’t going to be that big a learning curve. At least for me (going to an ortho with strong stagger), it finally meant that the keys felt like they were in the right place. I don’t think the benefits of other layouts are quite as big if the keyboard actually fits your bone structure.

If you are going to a cut size layout, it’s better to add in features incrementally onto something you already know rather than having to learn colemak and layers and thumb clusters.

If you have the time of course to re-learn how to type sure, do it all at once, but any time you spend on another layout (like, say, in the office) is going to make the transition harder. And as I said, layouts designed to make typing on a normal keyboard better make less sense on an ergo.

I never was able to use proper technique on a standard qwerty board due to it causing hand pain with extended use and learning colemak on ortho let me lock in the correct finger position and such without harming my ability to type on a staggered qwerty board. except when drunk, I keept trying to type colemak on the qwerty.

I’d give yourself a few days to become accustomed to the new key positions before learning a new layout.

Focusing on putting your fingers in the right place is tricky enough without also having to concentrate on a completely new layout. Trying to much at once could cause excessive frustration.

That isn’t to say that you can’t use a new layout in the context of a training program for a few exercises a day, but unless you’re in a particular rush don’t change your default layout until your fingers learn the new key positions well enough.

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