Chapter 1 - The Power of Purposeful Practice 

Studies

• With 4 months of practice, 2 subjects were able to increase the number of digits they could remember from 9/11 digits to 13/15 digits
• The author conducted a study with Steve, who after 2 years of practice was able to remember 82 digits

Key Terms

• Purposeful practice: practice that has well-defined and specific goals, is focused, involves feedback, and requires getting out of one’s comfort zone

General Information

• The brain has a limit of 7 items that it can hold in short-term memory at once
• No one has ever found the upper limits of long-term memory
• Only recently was there an increase in the amount of time that people in different areas devoted to training, combined with a growing sophistication of training techniques. This resulted in a steady improvement in the abilities of the performers, even in highly competitive fields
• No matter what field you study, the most effective types of practice all follow the same set of general principles
• The most effective and powerful types of practice in any field work by harnessing the adaptability of the human body and brain to create the ability to do things that were previously not possible
• Once a person reaches a level of “acceptable” performance and automaticity, the additional years of practice don’t lead to improvement
• In the absence of deliberate efforts to improve, learned automated abilities gradually deteriorate
• You need feedback to identify exactly where and how you are falling short
• If you never push yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve
• Ben Franklin played chess but was never good enough to compare to chess best players because he never pushed himself or got out of his comfort zone
• Generally, the solution is not “try harder” but rather “try differently”
• You should work with a teacher or coach because they know the sorts of obstacles you’re likely to encounter and can suggest ways to overcome them
• It’s surprisingly rare to get clear evidence in any field that a person has reached some immutable limit on performance
• Meaningful positive feedback is one of the crucial factors in maintaining motivation
• The key to improved mental performance is the development of mental structures that make it possible to avoid the limitations of short-term memory and deal effectively with large amounts of information at once