Productivity
Deliberate practice
https://fs.blog/deliberate-practice-guide/
If we want to improve a skill, we need to know what exactly has to change and what might get us there. Otherwise, we plateau.
Deliberate practice requires constant feedback and measurement: This is neccessary to find out what works for making the skill better. Beware of vanity metrics (i.e., the metric that doesn't really reflect real progress, like # of email subscribers vs # of paid customers)
Deliberate practice is most effective with a coach:
he best way to get past any barrier is to come at it from a different direction, which is one reason it is useful to work with a teacher or coach. We often get stuck on a same mistake again and again and never notice it (and thus performance plateaus). A coach can see your performance from the outside, without the influence of overconfidence and other biases. If you don't have a coach: metagocnition (i.e., self-coaching / self-evaluation) A critical part of self-evaluation is deciding what caused those errors. Average performers believe their errors were caused by factors outside their control: my opponent got lucky; the task was too hard; I just don’t have the natural ability for this. Top performers, by contrast, believe they are responsible for their errors. Note that this is not just a difference of personality or attitude. Recall that the best performers have set highly specific, technique-based goals and strategies for themselves; they have thought through exactly how they intend to achieve what they want. So when something doesn’t work, they can relate the failure to specific elements of their performance that may have misfired.
intrinsic motivation: Persisting with deliberate practice poses difficulty and discomfort. Thus it cannot be continued for a long period if you don't have intrinsic motivation for that.
spacing effect: It's better to practice intensely for a short hours and in a long time span (keep practicing for years), rather than practicing for a long hours and in a short time span (for a few months)
The most effective way to learn new information is through spaced repetition. I completely agree and I have experienced this a lot! At least for learning some concept, you gotta experience / face it in many different context repeatedly. You must see it from many different aspects / views. That helps to understand it a lot deeper.