Really interesting article by Anders Ericsson detailing his researches about deliberate practice (in the text he calls it purposeful practice).
In his experiment a lad learned to memorize sequences of 82 random digits.
In the first weeks he could only memorize 8 (or 9 when lucky). But after using some techniques he was able to improve.
https://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/not-all-practice-makes-perfect
The "game changer" in the progress happened when they decided to change from "memorize as many digits as you can" to "focus on memorizing +X digits than you memorized in the last session (and don't move forward until you're comfortably memorizing this amount)". This also reminds me that thing about SMART Goals.
Music instructor and yong music student:
Purposeful practice...
... has well-defined, specific goals.
... is focused
... involves feedback
... requires getting out of one's comfort zone
Parkinson's law:
work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Given the Parkinson's law, use the Pomodoro technique in your favor.
Instead of yearly big ambitious goals, set weekly (smaller, achievable) goals.
Skill I want
Strategies to achieve that (unordered):
achievement: finish my DevOps books
Facts are googable, concepts are hard google.
Focus on grasping concepts.
Deliberate practice.
Write down what you're learning/listening/reading. Use your own words.
rigid mind