Practice the step that combines two skills you already have
When you can do two things separately but not together, practice the single move that decides how they fit.
Why it works
The 2007 introduction works through 3 × (4 + 1). Getting it right needs a distributive act that coordinates adding and multiplying, so it is one order more complex than either alone. The paper says that people who can do both “display a greater freedom of mental functioning.” The practice here is this page’s application: isolate that coordinating move and rehearse it on purpose.
How to do it
- Name the two skills you can already do separately.
- Pick a small, concrete case that needs both at once.
- Work out, in words, the one rule that tells you when to use which, or how they feed each other.
- Repeat the case with a different example until the combining move works without you spelling it out.
Evidence
The worked example and the claim about freedom of mental functioning are the 2007 paper’s own, used to illustrate its definition of higher orders. No study tests this practice as training. (mechanistic)
The claim that combining two skills gives greater freedom of mental functioning is the authors’ description, not a measured outcome.
Sources
Common mistake
Assuming that because you can do each skill, combining them should follow automatically, and then drilling each skill more instead of practicing the combining step.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for The Model of Hierarchical Complexity, Explained
- Map the sub-steps before judging the task
Before deciding a task is too hard for you, list the sub-steps it needs and note which must happen in a fixed order.
- Tell apart too much information from too little connection
Separate having too many items to hold from having the items but not yet knowing how they relate.
- Practice the simpler skill underneath a failing one
When a harder version keeps collapsing, go back and practice the basic action it is built on, by itself.
- Define what finished looks like for each step
Decide in advance what a completed step looks like, because a step is either done correctly or not done at all.
- Step up a level when one frame keeps repeating
When the same failure keeps coming back, place your current way of seeing the problem inside a larger system of ways to see it.
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- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
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