Deliberate Practice

Structured practice followed by major events.

At looked at some notes from 2001, and saw the key to my success.

In 2002, I completed an Ironman. Looking back on on what would be one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, I see now that it was preceded by plenty of deliberate practice (long before I head read about the concept). It looked liked this:

  1. Horsetooth half marathon (4/21)
  2. Wildflower Tri (5/5)
  3. Metric century (5/20)
  4. Boulder Peak Tri (8/5)
  5. Harvest Moon Tri (9/9)

I had notes about how I felt back then that my best thinking occurred early in the day and back then I was waking up at 5am. I struggled with the same things I struggle with today, including the one notebook. At the time, I remember how much I lived my Jornada.

PS: If you are looking for the modern day equivalent to the Jornada, check out the GPD Micro PC.

Back then I was very goal driven. I see that I limited myself to 5 personal goals and 5 professional goals. For the most part, I met all of them. The story continues here.

Fast forward 20 years.

I wake up early and fine that the first 2-3 hours of the day (5-8am) are often when my mind is at it's best.

But when I look at how I'm using my 'prime' time, I'm not so sure I'm always make the best of it.

Deliberate practice is a way to change that. It's essentially about picking the topics that my future self needs. And because it takes time to gain the knowledge, it's essential to start now. Examples: Discourse, Electron, Google Analytics, Search Console, etc..

These fall into a few main categories:

Further Reading & Related