Ironman swim in Kona, Hawaii; US Navy Photo by Chief Journalist Deborah Carson
Today is the Ford Ironman Triathlon here in Madison, Wisconsin. Over 2,000 athletes converge on the city to compete in the event for which they have been practicing over the past months and years.
In a way, triathletes are something of an anomaly in our day and age, when “practice” has become almost obsolete for adults. I agree with the thoughts of Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn who observed that for most adults, “…their days of methodically trying to build a new set of skills or sharpen their old ones are long past them” (August 14, 2011, “In praise of the lost art of practice”).
Still, science continues to uphold the merits of practice in order to achieve optimal learning. Consider, for instance, the work of Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Roemer (1993) who have showed us that to achieve expert status in anything, we need to engage in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice means not just repetition of skills, but repetition with immediate, informative feedback that will allow us to correct our errors.
Or consider the reminder that psychology professor Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth gives us in her summary of the research on achievement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaeFnxSfSC4): “There is no domain of expertise that has been studied where the world-class performers have put in fewer than ten years of consistent, deliberate practice.”
My husband and I were sitting at the dinner table the other night trying to ascertain if we have practiced anything for ten years or 10,000 hours. I am proud to say that this month, I am celebrating my ten-year anniversary of becoming a licensed psychologist, and so there is at least one endeavor in my life that has received its fair share of practice.
Our next question was, “What would happen if you gave your finances 10,000 hours of practice?” Warren Buffet once said that by the time he was ten years old, he had read every book on investing that was available in the Omaha public library. And by the time he finished high school, he had tried about 20 different businesses. Buffet is often described as a reliable, hard-working, determined individual who continually refines his approach. He is perhaps one of our best role models of deliberate practice in the financial realm.
What aspect of your financial life could benefit from deliberate practice? What is one practice routine that you could add to your life to strengthen your financial outcomes down the road?
7 Responses to “Practice is Good Practice”
I wish we all had more time in our day for practice—imagine all the things we could accomplish! Children are so lucky that they have the time to practicemusic/sports/etc, but they of course don’t realize how lucky they are to have this time. Maybe when we get free time, instead of vegging out in front of the TV, we should all carve in time to review our financial situations.
@JEN–Good point. And if we only knew as children exactly what it is that we will want to have practiced by the time we reach adulthood!
Just finished reading the book about Google, and “20% time” where employees are given 20% of their time to projects where they are not assigned to. Basically workers are given time to use their creativity on anything they’d like.
from the book….
“Managers ambitiously tried to organize the 20% time so it wouldn’t be a wasted resource. That was completely the wrong mindset.” Managers said, “oh those engineers are working on random things. We need to coordinate them and manage it.”
The author states that “The real value is that people will do things that everyone thinks are a waste of time. That’s where the big opportunities are. It’s an opportunity because other people don’t see it.”
The 20% time rule came about because an engineer started toying with an ad system that would read your emails, and target you with ads based upon the content of your email. Basically a billion dollar idea that Google has harnessed.
With that, doing your job well, and not being afraid to take a chance on a side project is something that most everyone can do. Just don’t tell anyone what you are working on until you are almost done, so you don’t get in trouble. If your ideas don’t pay off, you no doubt learned skills you didn’t have before.
**I really just wanted to talk about Google culture
@DAN–”20% time” would really allow us to get to our 10,000 hours of practice at a good pace. I hope more workplaces start implementing this strategy.
You could read a lot of financial books in ten thousand hours! Thanks for the interesting post.
A deliberate practice? Put away a small amount of money each week after your paycheck!
@Maria and @Etta–reading books and saving money each week–both good practices to practice!
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