3 ms·

The usual saying is that "the adjective is the enemy of the noun," but on this issue, you shouldn't think about "practice" except in combination with the word "

The usual saying is that "the adjective is the enemy of the noun," but on this issue, you shouldn't think about "practice" except in combination with the word "deliberate." What Dan McLaughlin, the amateur golfer who is trying to become an expert golfer, is doing is testing out the idea that sufficiently structured and systematic practice with a coach can turn a moderately interested, not particularly talented average performer into an expert performer in the domain of playing golf. The research base that developed the term "deliberate practice," (and, for that matter, more rigorously defined "expertise") comes from K. Anders Ericsson[1] and colleagues who contributed to the The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006), a book[2] summarizing research in many domains of human performance. There are a lot of popular books on these ideas, but only a few take care to distinguish deliberate practice from playful engagement or routine performance by an amateur, and only a few look carefully at the definition of "expert" performance. What's rigorously defined as "deliberate practice" (with coaching and monitoring of fine details of performance) is very hard to do long-term for more than four hours per day, which is why the "ten-year rule" was the original expression of some of the earliest findings on the development of expertise. Your sleeping hours don't count (directly) for development of expertise, nor eating nor hours spent on other daily activities, so it takes years to accumulate 10,000 hours of deliberate practice with necessary rest and play in between sessions of practice. [1] http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html [2] http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cognition/cambridge-handbook-expertise-and-expert-performance http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cog...

LaPingvino 13y ago
playful engagement can also be useful or even important. I think open-mindedness is more important here: you need to be able to absorb new concepts and accept experience into your action during the practice. I think that's why people with autism (looking at it through the Intense World glasses) can learn some things really fast, although they don't intentionally train certain things.
- zemvpferreira 13y ago
  Playful engagement is certainly important, especially if you're practicing skills outside of a structured, measurable, competitive activity, but I'd question anything being more important to mastery than deliberate practice: Is it my bias or are successful competitors almost always very serious during practice, and relaxed after winning "matches"?
jimhefferon 13y ago
Can you recommend an overview? I could, for instance, read the Cambridge book but does it have an overview article or is a collection of individual areas articles?
read 13y ago
From the article: Maybe talented people just practise more and try harder at the thing they're already good at - because they enjoy it? There's a profound implication here: that you can train yourself to enjoy something you originally didn't. And even if it's no less hard of a problem than it is to make yourself a 10,000-hour expert in something, it's one with a broader impact.
- joshkaufman 13y ago
  I recently wrote a book on this topic[1][2], and you're quite right - most people seem to get wrapped up in the status that surrounds the idea of expertise when the real value of this research is what it tells us about how to go about acquiring new skills for personal or professional use. As you mentioned, practicing to the point of enjoying the skill is the most effective strategy. If you can reach the point where practicing is fun, you're much more likely to continue leveling up. Adult learners typically find the first few hours of practicing a new skill extremely frustrating, and a very low percentage will complete even 2-3 hours of deliberate practice if the skill is complex, ambiguous, or challenging. Somewhere around hours 3-10, however, you start to see clear improvements, and pushing through frustration is much less of a factor. That's the point where you start seeing clear results. In my research/experience, the threshold for acquiring new skills for personal or professional use is somewhere around 20 hours. That's not "expertise" - it's being able to produce a desired result or enjoy the experience. In the vast majority of cases, you don't need to be an "expert" to derive value from practicing new skills. Since most people have a hard time pushing through the early frustration barrier, 10-20 hours of strategic, deliberate practice will also give you a surprising level of competence compared to other people. All it really takes is having a smart strategy that ensures (1) you invest those early hours of practice in acquiring the most commonly-used sub-skills, (2) you alter your environment to make it as easy as possible to remove distractions, sit down, and do the work. [1] Book: http://first20hours.com http://first20hours.com [2] Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY

LaPingvino 13y ago

playful engagement can also be useful or even important. I think open-mindedness is more important here: you need to be able to absorb new concepts and accept experience into your action during the practice. I think that's why people with autism (looking at it through the Intense World glasses) can learn some things really fast, although they don't intentionally train certain things.

zemvpferreira 13y ago
Playful engagement is certainly important, especially if you're practicing skills outside of a structured, measurable, competitive activity, but I'd question anything being more important to mastery than deliberate practice: Is it my bias or are successful competitors almost always very serious during practice, and relaxed after winning "matches"?

jimhefferon 13y ago

Can you recommend an overview? I could, for instance, read the Cambridge book but does it have an overview article or is a collection of individual areas articles?

read 13y ago

From the article: Maybe talented people just practise more and try harder at the thing they're already good at - because they enjoy it? There's a profound implication here: that you can train yourself to enjoy something you originally didn't. And even if it's no less hard of a problem than it is to make yourself a 10,000-hour expert in something, it's one with a broader impact.

joshkaufman 13y ago
I recently wrote a book on this topic[1][2], and you're quite right - most people seem to get wrapped up in the status that surrounds the idea of expertise when the real value of this research is what it tells us about how to go about acquiring new skills for personal or professional use. As you mentioned, practicing to the point of enjoying the skill is the most effective strategy. If you can reach the point where practicing is fun, you're much more likely to continue leveling up. Adult learners typically find the first few hours of practicing a new skill extremely frustrating, and a very low percentage will complete even 2-3 hours of deliberate practice if the skill is complex, ambiguous, or challenging. Somewhere around hours 3-10, however, you start to see clear improvements, and pushing through frustration is much less of a factor. That's the point where you start seeing clear results. In my research/experience, the threshold for acquiring new skills for personal or professional use is somewhere around 20 hours. That's not "expertise" - it's being able to produce a desired result or enjoy the experience. In the vast majority of cases, you don't need to be an "expert" to derive value from practicing new skills. Since most people have a hard time pushing through the early frustration barrier, 10-20 hours of strategic, deliberate practice will also give you a surprising level of competence compared to other people. All it really takes is having a smart strategy that ensures (1) you invest those early hours of practice in acquiring the most commonly-used sub-skills, (2) you alter your environment to make it as easy as possible to remove distractions, sit down, and do the work. [1] Book: http://first20hours.com http://first20hours.com [2] Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY