Image by StuSeeger
Today I have a question for you about practicing. By practicing, I mean exercising a skill or technique over and over again.
Musicians, athletes, soldiers, and public speakers are examples of people who practice skills on a regular basis, particularly when they are trying to master those skills. Practice can involve both the body and the mind.
The purpose of practice, IMHO, is two fold:
- To master the use of a skill or technique under “normal” conditions when there are no distractions.
- To master the use of a skill or technique so that it is used without conscious thought, which becomes very important when distractions are present.
By contrast, we generally don’t practice very simple tasks like opening doors, entering telephone numbers on a keypad, changing a lightbulb, or changing the temperature on a thermostat. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to do so because the tasks are easily mastered by most people.
In the knowledge worker world we do all kinds of tasks: many routine, some requiring more conscious thought. We follow work procedures, standards, templates, methodologies, algorithms, best practices, instruction manuals (when we bother to read them), verbal directions and so on. Many of these are primarily mental tasks which involve little physical activity except for typing and using the mouse pointer to click on something.
Many of us rely on notes, tricks, tips, cheat sheats or mountains of sticky notes to help us work through these mental tasks when we forget a step.
Imagine trying to consult the user guide when you are pole vaulting, marching in formation, giving a 2 hour presentation, or playing a guitar solo. Trust me, people when notice when you stopped what you were doing so that you could whip out the instruction manual and figure out the next step, especially when you have to do that more than once. The same difficulty holds true when trying to close a sales deal. Or put out a fire (literally).
Yet, it seems to me that there’s a general reluctance to practice mental skills and procedures, especially when you do the work by yourself. Oh well, we figure, I’ll just check my notes if I run into situation X.
You can’t rehearse or practice for every possible scenario or variation thereof that can occur. Thus, the ability to “wing it”, improvise, or construct a new tactic at the moment of need is highly valued. The ability to ask for help is also valued, at least in the long run. Perhaps these “outs” discourage practice.
In hard times, training budgets are often the first funds that are cut. Thus, sometimes when we place help calls to undertrained support staff who have to fix our problems, we can almost hear the pages of the procedure manuals turning as the poor support person tries to find the answer. This scenario can play out from the lowest to the highest levels of an organizational hierarchy.
Sometimes the idea of accountants drilling on journal entries, project managers creating practice Gantt charts, or Web developers coding the same kind of web page over and over again seems like a dumb idea. After all, it’s not hard, right? Any fool can do those tasks.
On the other hand, maybe these people who put in many hours to master and MAINTAIN skills know something that most of us ignore.
What do you think? Is there value in making knowledge workers practice basic skills on a regular basis? Why not leave a comment and discuss!
In Malcolm Gladwell's newest book, Outliers, he presents the theory that someone needs at least 10,000 hours of practice to become a true master at something. Examples given are Musicians in Symphonies, Professional Athletes, and Bill Gates.
I'm reading Outliers right now – good book, if a bit depressing.
Yeah, I feel like even at just 21, I've already wasted my life playing video games and trying to get girls to like me…..these interests and issues therein may not be mutually exclusive.
Success comes from the consistent execution of the fundamentals. And that only comes from practice.
Ah, but in the knowledge-based industry, if you are constantly looking up the same things, then they aren't sticking in your mind. maybe the person isn't invested in “remembering” it, maybe it's something not used enough. Like Stephen said above me – if you are constantly using the fundamentals, you won't need practice.
I can even give a good example: I am constantly looking up how to create horizontal menus via CSS. Sure, it's relatively easy once you read the code and understand. But a part of me doesn't want to remember or something, as it is easier to just copy and paste the code I need and make adjustments.
Then again, it's something I use only occasionally. It's not like I'm always looking up how to style links.
For mental pursuits as well, then?
What about, say, website design (start to finish)? Any advantage to memorizing those steps or does it just come with doing it all of the time?
We're all wired differently so different skills and talents are going to stick in our minds, and others may never gel. But yes, practice is a necessity, especially if you're going to be doing something for many years to come, and even more so if you have difficulty retaining the necessary skills.
Sticky notes and cheat sheets are a security blanket…..especially for those who have such a tremendous influx of information that has to come in and go out on a regular basis. So, requiring practice of basic skills may not be the point. With the increase in lay offs, more and more work is piled on fewer desks, there needs to be more focus on helping those left to do the work learn more NEW skills in effectively managing a larger work load.
Well, that and creating more new jobs.
I'm not sure how much you can memorize. unless by repetition it sticks and become rote. Is it the fact I do it over and over what makes me remember it? interesting.
[...] Rehearsal or redundant practice – where is the value? (Broadcasting-Brain) [...]