Building capacity in learning new skills
Hi!
Several weeks back I wrote about building spare capacity. in our lives. I had my own attempt at this tested recently when I suddenly came down with the flu, and latest passed it to my daughter. Life was at a standstill for 10 days for our family, and I felt quite pained at having to cancel plans, and watch helplessly as work piled up.
This week, I explore this need for capacity when trying to learn a new skill or enter a new hobby. One of the things I think I have been doing well is in my martial arts hobby. I go for training sessions whenever I am free, and try my best to make time for it, even if it seems excessive. I tell myself that I had better do what I can now, so that if something comes between me and training for some time, my momentum is hard to break and I can afford to stop for a few weeks.
Whenever I see people getting into a new hobby or skill, they usually take a slow and steady approach, just a few minutes each week or month. In the pace of the world now, with so much competing for our attention and time, it is hard to maintain this consistency. Eventually a break happens, and the engine never gets started again. This happened to me when trying to learn coding, I would put in about 15 minutes a day, too little to really internalise any of the lessons. At some point a one day break expanded into weeks, and I had forgotten everything.
Especially at the early stages, where there is some minimum threshold of knowledge needed to make use of a skill, taking a sprint approach is the best. For those first months, avoid the distraction of looking around and starting something new, and try to make time to practice as much as possible. Capacity is built by developing the skill fast, and creating a bank of the hours of practice needed. This capacity helps to prevent losing the skill when forced to take a break later. Otherwise, to do something for a few months without crossing that minimum threshold, and then being forced into a break, creates a sense of wasted time, and guilt over not having a tangible accomplishment.
Even if after that initial burst, you decide not to pursue the skill further, at least there would be a foundation on which other things can build on, or that you can return to. There is a lot of media coverage about all the different things we can learn, and trying to make us feel like we are lacking something because we do not have ALL the skills out there. This tends to distract us from building the skills that truly interest us. I recall at one point I was spending a some time each day learning korean on duolingo, but it has ended up as quite a waste of time. I had not put in enough effort to get enough grasp of the language to make any use of it. Most of us will only gain proficiency in a few things in our lifetime, and we need to get comfortable with that. It is always good to gain some surface knowledge in different fields, but our core focus should be to build up that capacity in the skills that resonate with us, and we enjoy applying.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how you are developing your hobbies in this busy world, or how you manage to build a variety of knowledge. Also, it seems like we are in the middle of a flu season, so please do try stay healthy!
I did not reflect on any particular article this week, but for those who are looking for something to read, I found this to be worth thinking about:
Overcoming the need to be exceptional - The Book of Life
Have a great week ahead!
James
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