Everyone knows that practice makes you better, but not everyone knows how to practice to get better. Most people measure practice success using time or sets and reps. However, it’s a mistake to practice anything by focusing on these metrics.
Increasing these metrics don’t make you better. Measuring how long or how many is arbitrary and meaningless to the process of improvement. Instead, the focus must be on the what and the how.
- What do I need to practice to get better?
- How do I know if I’m getting better as I practice?
Yes, how long and how many are important factors in the what and how, but not nearly as important as the what and the how.
So, this is the bottom line. If you haven’t put a significant amount of time thinking about the what and how of practice, you are probably wasting a lot of time not getting better.