I know Gen Z wouldn't do it any other way but I'm a touchy-touch typist, who was trained on a typewriter* at the Corowa TAFE on Wednesday nights during high school in the mid-1980s.

I don't believe we even had hashtags; though it's hard to remember a time before them. #80srulethoughnotthefashion

We certainly didn't have emojis!

We had BS.

BS was what we called it when we didn't like the word per minute score our teacher had given us on our typed-up assessment task.

I was deadly accurate but painfully slow.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

We didn't even have copy and paste back then. (The above example might have taken me 60 seconds to type up, instead of two keystrokes!)

But speaking of lazy dogs and typing one-handed.

My dog wants her back scratched.

It makes her happy.

In fact, it makes her laugh.

Who doesn't love a laughing dog?!

The problem is that since taking a week's leave my dog thinks I've retired full-time and I'm now her part-time masseuse.

MORE MATERIAL GIRL:

When I worked from home this week, my dog parked her medium-sized frame under my desk for a back rub.

When I stopped the massage, she barked.

With only one free hand, this column was taking forever to put together.

When I did a mobile interview, that was next level tricky as I tried to jot down notes, hold the Dog and Bone and placate the pooch.

I did the only thing I could to get her to pipe down. I gave her three treats; she now knows to woof if I'm on the phone! My old dog taught me a new trick in no time!!

Finally the kids are gainfully occupied in school and the 15-year-old fur baby is more demanding than ever.

Now I'm left wondering how long does it take to break a bad habit or replace it with a new one.

Since the dawn of time there have been gazillions of theories on this.

If you Google long and hard enough, you can find exactly the response that best suits your desired urgency to change your situation.

Consider the 21-day rule, whose roots go back to the 1960s pop psychology book Psycho-Cybernatics.

This book says it takes a minimum of 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to gel.

A couple of years ago, a study of 96 people published in The European Journal of Social Psychology found it took on average 66 days to form a habit, such as eating fruit at lunch or running for 15 minutes a day.

Having just finished Plastic Free July, I believe changing a bad habit takes somewhere in between 21 and 66 days.

While already on board with reusable shopping bags, I rarely remembered to take my KeepCup when getting a takeaway coffee.

It was always in the wrong bag.

The wrong car.

In the right car, but with dregs from last week's green tea still in it.

This July I was determined to train myself to remember my KeepCup.

Forgotten my KeepCup. No coffee today!

In going without, I rewired my brain in no time to remember my cup.

This likely has no applications for my 15-year-old fur baby.

Why would you give up the premium massage for an express treatment?

It's simply different strokes for different furry folks!

* A machine with keys for producing alphabetical characters, numerals and typographical symbols one at a time on paper inserted round a roller. (I still had to Google "typewriter" to see if it was hyphenated. #grammargoals)

Receive our daily newsletter straight to your inbox each morning from The Border Mail. Sign up here