A Qwerty Game: A quirky game, a game with pen and paper

Discover yourself, the rewards will be unimaginable.

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By the way, at a glance, without counting each line, can you deduce how many lines of letters are in the group?

Why not try it and write down a few numbers that pop into your head?

You know at a glance that there are more than six lines, but less than fifteen. By the time you complete all the exercises you’ll know the answer for certain.

1. Look at all the letters on all the lines, then attempt to locate where on each row a letter resides, using the QWERTY keyboard in the picture.

A byproduct of this exercise, if practised diligently, is that even if you don’t touch-type, you’ll know the position of the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet as well as your secretarial colleagues or PAs in the firm.

Think over this for a moment: you already know how to locate the six letters that make up QWERTY. Try it and see. So now we’ve established this fact, see how you go with being able to locate in an instant the remaining twenty letters.

Use pen and paper for the following exercise. It’s not worth straining the brain in an attempt to hold all the letters of a single line in your head. (That exercise is for another time but not today.)

The use of pen and paper allows you to organise your thoughts tidily, saving unnecessary confusion.

Complete one line before moving to the next.

2. Rearrange all the letters in ascending order A, B, C, etc.

Rearrange all the letters in descending order Z, Y, X, etc.

Rearrange all the vowels in ascending order A, E, I, etc.

Rearrange all the vowels in descending order U, O, I, etc.

Rearrange all the consonants in ascending order B, C, D, etc.

Rearrange all the consonants in descending order Z, Y, X, etc.

3. Write out the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Use the 26 letters to check - as carefully as you can - which letters have been omitted from each line.

Take your time with this exercise; you’re developing super observation powers which come only to those who know how to concentrate.

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Scanning through the 1st line, we detect that the following letters are not present: A, B, H, L, T, V, W, Y and Z.

Now you can do likewise with the remaining lines.

4. Read aloud:

All the letters from top to bottom, left to right.

All the letters from top to bottom, right to left.

All the letters from bottom to top, left to right.

All the letters from bottom to top, right to left.

5. You should have your list of 26 letters of the English alphabet nearby. If not rewrite it, but this time add its position in the alphabet:

Z=26, Y=25, X=24….C= 3, B=2, A=1

You can complete the omitted eighteen letters/numbers.

Let’s say you see Z, C, B or Y, A, C, X.

You read out loud without hesitation: 26, 3, 2 or 25, 1, 3, 24.

If you forget the value of a letter, return to your written list.

Aim to do these exercises every day for the next 30 days.

You will learn about yourself and your relationship with your own mind. There is nothing difficult in these exercises. In fact they are so simple a child of average ability should be able to do them.

Once you get into these exercises your mind will create opportunities for you to do them more frequently than once a day.

But initially attempting these Tedium par Excellence™! exercises will feel as if one is trying to break into a coconut. But if you can tolerate the initial discomfort that comes with making an effort, the rewards will be unimaginable. But only you can discover the benefits for you and your mind.