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The tool · skills

Six-week practice plan

When
How long
Review
Name
Started
Week six falls on
1

Set up once

one sub-skill, not three
The broad skillthe category it sits inside
The one sub-skillcould you tell within a week whether an attempt went better?
The task it attaches tosomething that already happens weekly, so it costs no extra time
Where feedback comes froma checkable outcome, a named person asked a narrow question, your own written prediction, or a comparison against something good
2

Six weeks

one line before about what you are attempting, one line after about what happened
WeekWhat I am trying differentlyWhat happened
Weeks one and two are shaded because they will feel worse. Attending consciously to something you previously did automatically degrades it temporarily. That is where most people conclude the approach is not for them.

How much practice explains, honestly

Macnamara and colleagues, meta-analysis: deliberate practice explained 26 percent of performance variance in games, 21 in music, 18 in sports.

4 percent in education, and less than 1 percent in professions. The ten thousand hours claim does not survive that.

Practice is one lever and a small one at work. Expect improvement in a narrow sub-skill, not transformation.

Choose the thing you avoid, at the smallest available stakes. That is where the gap is, and why it is still there.

What part of your job do you arrange your week to do as little of as possible? That is usually the answer, and it is being avoided because attempts at it go badly. Reduce the stakes rather than the frequency: practise the mildly awkward conversation, not the annual difficult one. Ten minutes a week, total.

Ten minutes a week: one line before the attempt, one line after. Weeks one and two are shaded because they will feel worse, which is normal and is where most people stop. Saves in this browser only.

Prefer paper? Download the blank sheet as a PDF. The thinking behind it is in The Practice.

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