Cover Photo: A $200 (CAD) Apple Magic Keyboard
Why I bought a $200 keyboard and don’t regret it
In the past year, I’ve bought three keyboards. The first one I bought for three reasons:
It was cheap
It matched the style of my Macbook Pro
It had a USB-C cord
I’m sure you’ve bought a keyboard for the low price and for the style before, right?
Sadly, it turned out to be a turd of a keyboard. I had to madly press on the g, ;, and [ keys for them to register. While that might not sound too bad, when you’re a coder like me and use ; at the end of every line and [ very frequently, that’s a massive loss of productivity.
So, I said “screw it” and I bought another cheap keyboard, but this time it was proven to work. It was a Windows keyboard. It was massive and loud, but for the most part, it worked. I used it for three months before I realized I still wasn’t as productive as when I was using the keyboard from my Macbook Pro.
But I couldn’t really use it ergonomically with my setup. Yet, I still did it. I overused it and the keys started falling off. Apparently, that’s a common problem with the model of my Macbook Pro. The h and t keys just keep falling off. The n key sometimes double or triple prints.
It was terrible, but still, that was better than the previous two keyboards. I didn’t do anything about the situation until a few weeks ago when I realized I was losing precious time and money by loss of opportunity.
Let me explain.
If having a perfect keyboard saves me 45 minutes per day of productivity (I confirm it did), that means I have 45 minutes more to spend on productive things. My main activities during the day are (1) writing for one hour and (2) programming for the rest of the day.
My stats tell me I spend an average of 9.5 hours per day on my computer. Most of that time is spent typing. Any productivity gain I make typing is time I can use doing other things, or more of the same things.
No matter how you value your time, a 45-minute gain daily is easily worth $200. For me, that means I pay it back in less than a week of using it. I’ve cheapened out for so long for something that would have made me more money in the end.
I’m writing about all that for you to evaluate the things you’re cheapening out on but really shouldn’t. Time has a price, and a lot of times, it’s a price you’re overlooking.
I can only work with music on. The higher the sound quality, the better I perform. As such, I don’t buy cheap headphones anymore.
I’m in front of my computer at least 9 hours per day, so I don’t buy shit chairs anymore. Chiro bills are more expensive, and frankly not as fun as sitting on a comfortable chair.
What are you postponing buying because of a “steep” price? Would it make you more productive or healthy?
It just might be worth getting.
What are you not buying but should be?