How to make a spacebar counter

If you're an avid typist, you may find yourself wanting to track how many words or characters you've typed in one sitting. A basic but useful tool for tracking your typing productivity is a spacebar counter. A spacebar counter gives you a real-time readout of how many words and characters you've typed with just a quick glance, giving you more confidence as your performance improves.

Making your own spacebar counter is surprisingly straightforward and requires only basic materials. To make one, you'll need five pieces of cardstock or other stiff paper, some washi or masking tape, scissors (optional), and a permanent marker. First, cut the five pieces of cardstock into rectangles that measure 1-inch by 2-inches. Then stack the pieces on top of each other so that all the short sides are facing down (aka creating a tabbed structure) and tape them together at the top edge with washi tape. Alternatively, if you don't have any washi tape, masking tape will do fine too!

Next, flip the cardstock stack over so the taped side is facing up then mark each piece from left to right with numbers representing units of five words in length: 0 for nothing typed yet, 5 for five words typed, 10 for ten words typed and so on until you reach 25 for twenty-five words typed. Now draw arrows at the midpoint between each number using your permanent marker to indicate which way to count up or down in multiples of five as you type away.

You're almost done! The last step is simple: slip the cardstock stack into the keyhole of your keyboard underneath its spacebar then start typing away! As long as it's placed properly underneath the bar, every time it's pressed down it should flip one layer back displaying an updated word count depending on how far it goes down when pushed - if it goes halfway then your word count should increase by 5 and so forth until they're all up indicating that 25 words have been successfully written!