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Deliberate Practice | |
May 07th, 2018 | |
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There's a fantastic article circulating on the typical nerd | |
portals today regarding "deep work" and "deliberate practice" [0]. | |
Give it a read if you haven't already. | |
[0] The Importance of Deep Work | |
One of the things I enjoyed most about the post was the summary of | |
methods of deep work taken from a great book on the subject [1]. | |
[1] Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World | |
Monastic: | |
"This philosophy attempts to maximize deep efforts by | |
eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations." | |
— isolate yourself for long periods of time without | |
distractions; no shallow work allowed. | |
Bimodal: | |
"This philosophy asks that you divide your time, dedicating some | |
clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest | |
open to everything else." – dedicate a few consecutive days | |
(like weekends, or a Sunday, for example) for deep work only, at | |
least one day a week. | |
Rhythmic: | |
"This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently | |
start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple | |
regular habit." – create a daily habit of three to four hours | |
every day to perform deep work on your project. | |
Journalistic: | |
"in which you fit deep work wherever you can into your | |
schedule." — Not recommended to try out first, since you first | |
need to accustom yourself to deep work. | |
This put into words a struggle I've had with my own strategies. | |
I've tried dedicating a set amount of time, sort of like "Rythmic" | |
but that time hasn't been long enough to establish a deep work | |
flow. I've set aside days of the week for it like Bimodal, but | |
rarely with the isolation necessary to really dig in. Occasionally | |
I'm successful, but I think it's more to do with luck, or | |
a motivation I happened to find that day, than any deliberatet | |
planning. | |
In the past I've spoken about freezing up when an opportunity for | |
exploration appears [2]. I'm combatting that with organization of | |
lists so I can refer back to these projects I have moving and | |
I don't waste time spinning my wheels. All of it is a part of the | |
effort to get back the time that should belong to me that I give | |
away out of a combination of laziness and poor planning [3]. | |
[2] Stuck | |
[3] Resolution | |
Ultimately, there are skills I want to improve. The top of that | |
list are my writing craft and the Shakuhachi [4]. In reality the | |
list is quite a bit longer. Even so, I have the ability, I have | |
the time, and I have the necessary components to make a go of it. | |
[4] Shakuhachi (UTF-8) | |
Deliberate practice, not just sitting around fiddling with crap, | |
is the difference I'm missing. I've told it to my son a lot, and | |
I'll continue to do so in the future. You can't just go along with | |
things and expect to learn and grow. You need to do the hard | |
things [5]. When I practice with the Shakuhachi, I can't just go | |
sit on the porch and play improvisations for twenty minutes. | |
I have specific things I need to improve: timing, embouchure, | |
breathing dynamics. My writing is the same. I'm working on | |
a writing exercise and I've given myself a specific goal to focus | |
on brevity. This is good. | |
[5] Do the Hard Thing | |
It's not just about doing things with my hobby time. It's work in | |
itself and I need to commit to it, at least a significant portion | |
of the time, if I want to improve. |