How to become an expert — Proven strategies for better practice results

Six crucial things for effective practice
This week, I would like to focus on how to acquire new skills efficiently and improve existing skills effectively. For this purpose, let us define skill as ‘the ability to perform a specific action with a decent amount of expertise” Learning a new skill, therefore, means learning to perform a specific action with a decent amount of expertise.
Many of the following points are related to the idea of deliberate practice, a theory which I try to utilize every single day. You can read a short primer about that topic on one of my favorite blogs here. Additionally, I suggest two books at the bottom of the article, both of which are related to optimized learning. Without furter ado, paying attention to these six things will help you to hone your practice routine:
1. Assess whether you need/want the skill
Before you even start learning a new skill you should ask yourself if you really want to learn it and if so why. Without a purpose behind learning a skill, it is often difficult to stick through the hard times. If you are determined to learn something and have a specific reason for your urge to acquire it (which may just be that you are super interested in a topic) you will learn it faster and have a higher chance of suceeding.
2. Break the skill into chunks
If it is a skill worth learning, I can almost certainly assure you that you will not be able to learn it in one session. If there are any one-session-skills, please tell me. Since most skills are more complex, they need to be broken down into compartments to ensure quick results. If you want to learn how to code, you cannot start by “just building a program and learning on the way”. You need a foundation of knowledge to start. Therefore, breaking down a more complex skill is crucial for achieving success. In terms of coding, you need to learn the syntax of the programming language you want to use and also know where to write the code and how to deploy it. If you want to learn a backflip you should split the movement into the jump sequence, the backspin itself and the landing instead of learning all at once. Often, courses, books or blog posts classify these steps for you. Sometimes however, there are no decent guides for the particular skill you want to acquire. If that is the case, you should focus a vast amount of effort on identifying the sub-skills before you even start with actually starting to practice. It will save you much time and effort in the long-run.
3. Repeat the sh*t out of it
If you want to keep getting better at something you need to repeatedly practice it. Usually, you notice small improvements very quickly and sometimes you just need to get over a certain threshold to make a huge leap in progress. It is a fairly simple point, but one of the most important ones.
4. Learning is hard, do not try to make it too easy
Simple repetition only brings you that far. You will inevitably reach a plateau after some time. In order to break this barrier, you need to push yourself. It needs to be hard. This is a mistake done by many beginners in the gym but also applies to other areas as well. Most beginners do not strain themselves enough. I do not encourage anyone to increase the weights in the gym if he or she feels unsafe. However, if you feel comfortable all the time while you exercise, your progress will probably not be the best. An interesting observation was made by Cal Newport in his book “So good they can’t ignore you”. He compares his own skills on the guitar with those of a professional musician. He notices that both he and the pro had a similar amount of practice hours during their youth. Despite the comparable amount of practice time, the pro was playing a few levels above Cal’s. He contributed the skill gap to qualitative differences in their practice routines. Cal played a lot of songs he was comfortable with a lot of times (simple repetition). The musician tried out new songs which fully challenged him on a regular basis (progressive repetition). He constantly expanded his boundaries by making practice painful despite his advanced skillset. This is one of the core components of deliberate practice. If you want to get better, the practice should not be too easy for you. You need a particular amount of strain. However, you should pay attention to reaching appropriate difficulties. If you have never run 5km in your life, do not try to run a marathon immediately. Progress is a continuous process of improvement. The law of compound effects will work in your favor if you stick to it long enough.
5. Do use intervals
Deliberate practice is exhausting by definition. It challenges you and your mental and or physical resources significantly. You cannot keep that up for the whole day. Use well-timed breaks in between to give your mind and or body some rest. Some people like to use the Podomoro-technique for non-physical work. It is a simple technique which splits your time in work time and breaks. If you want to learn more about it, you can take a look here. Other people try to decide themselves when they cannot take it anymore and take their breaks without a clear schedule. Both tactics can lead to success. Working non-stop without breaks usually, does not.
6. Feedback loops are crucial for good results
It is difficult to get better without being able to evaluate how good your last attempt was. Feedback is one of the most important parts of effective practice. Even if you commit a lot of mistakes, or especially if so it is crucial that you know it. Making mistakes is normal. I did not figure that out early enough and sometimes struggle with that even now in some areas. Additionally, there are different types of mistakes. In college/high school I almost never did practice exercises right. Practicing for my final math exams in high school, I did not answer a single complex practice question correctly at all. The first mistakes were made because I did not know the concept. These mistakes needed to be taken care of in the preparation by looking at the correct answer and understanding the calculations there. After some time, I only did careless mistakes because I rushed answering the questions too much. In hindsight, these mistakes were tolerable because I knew that I would not do them in the exam. At the time however, it stressed me a lot. Implementing a good feedback loop which can inform you every time you make a mistake, helps you to figure out what kind of mistake it was and gives you advice on how to avoid it the next time is a crucial factor for learning new skills. Getting this feedback from an expert in the field you are tackling enormously improves your learning process. This is why all the greatest athletes still have coaches who correct their mistakes and help them to get even better. The moment you can afford a coach, take one. It helps.
In my humble opinion, the most important factors for effective practice are a smart but steep progression in difficulty, a strong determination to learn it and embracing the fact that it will be tough sometimes. Someone slightly more famous than me put it like this:
Excellence demands effort and planned, deliberate practice of increasing difficulty — K. Anders Ericsson
Below, I would like to suggest two good resources which can assist you in reframing your perspective on effective practice.
Two books about the best way of becoming an expert
Since this week’s topic is focused on practice, I thought it suitable to offer you two resources that focus on the process of learning and how to improve it.
The first book I like to recommend is called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. A journalist travels around the world visiting places of exceptionalism in sports, music, and business in order to find the secrets of good practice. The book is a very enjoyable read and also offers an intriguing overall message: Learning is learnable.
The second book today is called Make it stick by Peter C. Brown. It is a collection of practical advice on better learning processes based on empirical science. The best thing about it is that some of the advice is counterintuitive at first but makes sense when you think about it for some time.
In this article, I stuck to a broad definition of skill. Next week, I to want to introduce strategies and tactics for a specific skill: Acquiring and retaining knowledge effectively. Until then, have a productive week.
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