Learn Like an Athlete

This reminds me of a concept I've read about in different sources regarding learning; the art of 'deliberate practice', something akin to maintaining a flow / staying in a goldilocks zone while incrementally increasing the difficulty level.

Just recently I listened to a podcast with Josh Waitzkin (learning expert, chess prodigy and subject of the film 'Searching for Bobby Fischer'), where he is now learning to surf with the aid of something called an eFoil:

"What’s been interesting is opposed to having two to four minutes of wave time a session surfing, I’ll have 54 minutes or so of wave time at faster speeds. What’s interesting is it also opens up the ability to do deliberate practice in surfing. Similar to investing, you have to be really creative in how you create deliberate practice in the surf world because the ocean is so unpredictable. It’s really difficult to replicate sections, to hit the same thing 10, 15, 20 times. In martial arts, you can just say, “I’m going to drill this thing 30 times today,” or 100 times or 200 times. Whether it’s a throw, or a technique, a submission. And then you can try that in training."

It seems to me as a web developer that our deliberate practice is the todo app, or whipping up a server, or integrating a new technology into a small project that can be completed in a day or 2, then repeating with nuance until it becomes automatic. The key seems to be to focus on a skill and then build, review, repeat - not many people learn to play a sport just by reading about it.

I enjoyed this article. I have always been a learner. It's always interesting to look back over my life and think on subjects I spent countless hours learning, and then integrating into my regular thinking patterns.

The best part about learning for me is applying concepts from one subject across my brain to another subject. That's been a helpful skill in my career. I can't agree more that we should all be training our brains to learn on a regular basis.

Yeah, good advice. I like self-improvement, so this article appeals to me.

The problem is finding time to implement such a plan, of course.