I also disagree with the post (sorry!) There are two variables: what kind of practice you do, and how long you do it. I’ve long felt that the most efficient kind of practice for many skills is some kind of imitation or immersion, improving you at multiple dimensions at once: for example, for music it would be jamming rather than learning pieces, and for foreign language learning it would be listening to audiobooks rather than doing duolingo. So in that respect I agree with you. But when it comes to learning schedule, I’ve found that doing this kind of multidimentional practice for half an hour a day can lead to very fast improvement, because the brain uses the downtime to consolidate things. It’s almost magical how you come back to practice the next day and realize that you got better. There’s just no need to do full time immersion; if the method of practice is chosen right, the return per hour of practice will be much higher if you allow plenty of downtime between sessions, and you’ll also have time to do other things.
No worries, I appreciate the perspective. I agree that for many skills there is a consolidation and rest period that is needed. An obvious example is that you can’t cram all of the effort needed to build muscle into one week and expect the same kinds of returns that you would get over many months. Though, I do expect you could master the biomechanical skills of weightlifting much faster with that attitude!
If you have examples of the multidimensional learning schedule, I’d love to hear them. I’m imagining something like {30 minutes of spanish language shows}?
I think if you have a set of books and audiobooks that are a gentle ramp from your current level, you can basically spend an hour a day reading and listening with pretty low effort, and the other skills will grow automatically: human languages are a bit magical that way. But building a set of materials with a gentle enough ramp is the hard part.
I also disagree with the post (sorry!) There are two variables: what kind of practice you do, and how long you do it. I’ve long felt that the most efficient kind of practice for many skills is some kind of imitation or immersion, improving you at multiple dimensions at once: for example, for music it would be jamming rather than learning pieces, and for foreign language learning it would be listening to audiobooks rather than doing duolingo. So in that respect I agree with you. But when it comes to learning schedule, I’ve found that doing this kind of multidimentional practice for half an hour a day can lead to very fast improvement, because the brain uses the downtime to consolidate things. It’s almost magical how you come back to practice the next day and realize that you got better. There’s just no need to do full time immersion; if the method of practice is chosen right, the return per hour of practice will be much higher if you allow plenty of downtime between sessions, and you’ll also have time to do other things.
No worries, I appreciate the perspective. I agree that for many skills there is a consolidation and rest period that is needed. An obvious example is that you can’t cram all of the effort needed to build muscle into one week and expect the same kinds of returns that you would get over many months. Though, I do expect you could master the biomechanical skills of weightlifting much faster with that attitude!
If you have examples of the multidimensional learning schedule, I’d love to hear them. I’m imagining something like {30 minutes of spanish language shows}?
I think if you have a set of books and audiobooks that are a gentle ramp from your current level, you can basically spend an hour a day reading and listening with pretty low effort, and the other skills will grow automatically: human languages are a bit magical that way. But building a set of materials with a gentle enough ramp is the hard part.