practice doesn't make perfect - jesse bridgewater
DESCRIPTION
Malcolm Gladwell researched and popularized the notion that you need 10,000 hours to master a subject. It is really easy to blow through those 10,000 hours without much greatness to show for it. There are a few really simple things you can do to make your hours of practice count. This talk touches on some theory, gives some examples, and makes some connections between practicing well, quantified-self and multi-armed bandit machine learning.TRANSCRIPT
Practice doesn’t makes perfect … because we are doing it wrong
Jesse Bridgewater@drbridgewater
Malcolm Gladwell did a great job of popularizing the research on deliberate practice in his book Outliers.
Benjamin Bloom: Researched 120 elite musicians, mathematicians, doctors, chess players.
● IQ, etc not predictive● Practice quantity and quality with coaching
Anders Ericsson from FSU is a key researcher in this area:● Reproducible lab methods to quantify expertise● 10,000 hours of deliberate / mindful practice● Hard to beat 10 years (maybe Bobby Fischer)
A few ways to practice badly
There are billions of ways to practice badly. A full treatment of this topic is beyond the scope of this presentation.
• Practice, practice, practice• Build on your strengths• Do what you love
Practice again and again and again
Practice the same thing repeatedly• So boring• Willpower is not infinite: you are on a budget,
so spend wisely• Hard to learn if you are not thinking
Build on your strengths
You will not become great by playing to your strengths
• It is conventional wisdom to focus your development effort on existing strengths.
• It is really fun to build on your strengths• A great violin solo is only as great at its biggest
mistake
Practice your favorite part
“Man, I love this part!!!”
Love will not find a way
• You will not get great ONLY focusing on what your love.• In any task there will be things you like more than others• The parts you do not like have to be just as great as the parts
that you love
A few personal examples• Music
– OKRA– Jazz Band
• Programming– Undergrad– Grad school
• Management: Performance Feedback
My band Okra didn’t make it● Fun playing with your best friends●Met girls (increased wooing odds) ●Played for hundreds of people●Took poser album cover pictures●Played favorite songs over and over●Played the songs we were all good at●Threw away the bad recordings
●Worked really hard●Met zero girls●Played mistakes over and over●Played songs needing the most work●Optimized for excellence●Recorded every practice and listened
to the worst parts●Won city and state competitions
Programming in Undergrad• Did some programming for physics and math
classes, but just enough to be dangerous• Took some CS classes• It was fun, exciting (vacation from Physics)
– Like vacation reading it was fun• Lots of trial and error without mastery• Tortured the code until it confessed
Programming in Grad School• Had fun building something new but this was
no vacation• Core to my academic success• Trial and error with the purpose of reducing
future errors and learning• Less fun but more focused on getting better
Example: Managing Performance
Plan
Set Context / Expectations
Role Impact / Importance
What’s Going Well
Leveraging Strengths
What’s Not Going Well
Discuss, Get Feedback
Start, Stop, Continue
Reiterate Expectations
Motivate / Call to action
TIME (I have been at this a while and have iterated many times)
Plan
Role Impact / Importance
What’s Going Well
What’s Not Going Well
Discuss, Get Feedback
Motivate / Call to action
Plan
Role Impact / Importance
What’s Going Well
What’s Not Going Well
Motivate / Call to action
Giving useful feedback to people on your team
Motivate
Give Feedback
Provide Context
Be Consistent
Be Honest About Problems (while motivating)
Some things that work for me• Think. Be mindful.• Record and replay
– Music, speaking, teaching, etc• Make it into a performance
– Explain, teach, publish• Focus on mistakes
– Know how and why it happened• Prob(mistake) == Prob(practice)• Evolve actively…don’t just repeat
Becoming Great is Really Hard
• Always focus on something you can’t yet do• The limit is willpower not talent• Probably cannot do more than 2-4 hours a day• Match practice time to probability of mistake• The goal is increased performance, not enjoyment• The pleasure of doing something you just mastered is
what NOT PRACTICING feels like
Thank You!!Read These Instead of Outliers
Anders Ericssonhttp://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/everything/ericsson2007a.pdfAndrew Ng: Stanford, Google Brain, Coursera, Baiduhttps://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140320175655-176238488-learn-to-speak-or-teach-better-in-30-minutes