

Tldr summary: deliberate practice for expert performance - gandalfgeek
http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the-role-of-deliberate-practice-in-the

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iandanforth
The summary is missing a couple very important points

1\. There a ramp up of deliberate practice time in all experts developments
starting from 20-30m a day to the noted 4 hours a day.

2\. There is a ramp up in skill level of the teachers of experts starting from
parents, to local experts, to recognized experts, to the tops of whatever
field you're trying to master.

You can't just increase your skill, you need a better coach.

These points are not made clearly in Ericssons paper. Please check out
([http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-
Handbo...](http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-
Psychology/sim/0521600812/2)) for a more complete and useful overview of the
topic.

More interesting by far than hacking yourself is investigating the neural
basis for why this method of learning works. Expertise is not special, but a
special case of normal learning. It's noticing what you could be learning
rather than what you need to get by. Once this is accepted you can recognize
the common thread of skill, information and descriminatory ability aquisition
throughout the animal kingdom. Heck you can train Aplysia to be an expert!
It's all based on fundamental properties of neuronal systems and that,
frankly, is amazingly cool.

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DanielStraight
This is really a helpful summary. Most citations I've seen of that article
mention only the ten-year rule. I had never read before about the importance
of rest or support structures.

Thanks for sharing.

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nostromo
Super great. I really like WikiSummaries for non-fiction books. It's a great
way to see if you want to commit to the whole book or not. (Eg:
[http://www.wikisummaries.org/Getting_Things_Done:_The_Art_of...](http://www.wikisummaries.org/Getting_Things_Done:_The_Art_of_Stress-
Free_Productivity)) Perhaps they could expand to influential papers as well?

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awa
Lots (if not all) points in the blog post are covered in the book "Talent Is
Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else"
[http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-
Class...](http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-
Performers/dp/B0040RMEGM)

~~~
chrismanfrank
The Talent Code...even better. The author finds places around the world that
produce a lot of top talent and tells how they do it.
[http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-
Grown/dp/05...](http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-
Grown/dp/055380684X)

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michaeldhopkins
So, help me understand this please.

Two hours of practice a day is optimal. And a 35-40 hour workweek for
information workers is optimal (from other sources, not the Ericsson study.)

I assume that if one deliberately practices, there is less willpower left to
work, reducing the effective workweek by about 10 hours to 25-30. That is not
sustainable for a normal person. The exception would be if the skill practiced
used different parts of the body and mind than the work. For example,
practicing basketball while working a programming job.

Do I have that right?

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rdrimmie
I wonder if the trade-off of devoting those 10 hours to deliberate practice
results in much better use of the other 25-30.

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michaeldhopkins
I wonder too. It would be really nice, and I should try it. But, I do remember
Jason Fried telling me that their four day week didn't work out because it
effectively became a 3.5 day week, and that simply was not enough time to run
the business. 3.5 days is 28 hours in a 40 hour week. And the 37signals
employees seem to do a lot of deliberate practice on their own time.

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slackerIII
So here is a question for my fellow programmers -- how do you practice writing
better code deliberately?

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abecedarius
I used to benefit from a compulsion to come back to my programs repeatedly,
asking "How can this be better?" -- taking it a long way past the point that
made sense for that program in isolation. Trying never to be satisfied with an
ugly program. Picking projects with something to teach me. It can particularly
help to pick a problem that a master has tackled, and wait till you've written
your own before analyzing their solution.

I'd like to get better at deciding what to write, now.

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Getahobby
Tldr of the tldr: practice does NOT make perfect. Perfect practice makes
perfect.

~~~
matthew-wegner
"Practice makes permanent."

