Coaching practices for Deliberate Practice Not Just Practice on a Budget

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Deliberate Practice Not Just Practice on a Budget, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I sit down to practice for an hour but I’m half on my phone the whole time
  • When I practice I’m just kind of doing it again and hoping it’s better, because I don’t actually have a clear picture in my head of what great is supposed to look like
  • I go all-in for a week or two and then the novelty wears off and I drift away from it
  • There’s one specific part of this that keeps tripping me up, but I always practice the whole thing start to finish
  • My practice has gotten comfortable

Practices that may help

  1. Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
    Deliberate practice, studied by Anders Ericsson, is focused, effortful practice aimed just beyond your current ability, with immediate feedback and constant correction. It is what separates people who keep improving from people who simply log hours — and it is why the popular "10,000 hours" rule is an oversimplification of his work.
  2. Practice with full, undivided focus
    Short blocks of complete concentration beat long blocks of distracted repetition.
    Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
  3. Build sharper mental representations
    Develop a detailed internal model of what excellent performance looks like.
    Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
  4. Sustain effortful practice over the long haul
    Make deliberate practice repeatable across years, not heroic for a week.
    Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
  5. Break the skill into components and drill the weak link
    Isolate the specific sub-skill that limits you and train it on its own.
    Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
  6. Train at the edge of your ability
    Work on tasks just beyond what you can reliably do, not what you already do well.
    Deliberate Practice, Not Just Practice
  7. Cut costs mercilessly on things you don’t value
    Spend extravagantly on your priorities and ruthlessly eliminate the rest.
    Conscious Spending Plan, Made Practical
  8. Practice deliberately, not just repeatedly
    Target weaknesses with full focus and feedback, not comfortable repetition.
    Grit: Passion and Perseverance, Honestly Assessed
  9. Stop judging learning by today’s performance
    How well you do during practice is a bad predictor of how much you will keep.
    Desirable Difficulties: When Harder Means Better Learning
  10. Drill: attack your weakest sub-skill
    Isolate the rate-limiting component and drill it directly.
    Ultralearning: Aggressive, Self-Directed Learning

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