If you're busy, you're doing something wrong

Here's my theory: the blocks of time the elite players spend is non-negotiable, because it's their "top idea in the mind."[0]<p>In the past when I've worked with friends on side projects, the conversation would sometimes go like this.<p>Me: "Hey, let's try and meet like three evenings a week for two hours to work on this. Let's start tomorrow?" Them: "Yeah -- wait, I have to meet a friend for dinner tomorrow. Can you do the day after?" Me: "Sure."<p>[two days later]<p>Me: "Hey, we're still meeting up tonight, right?" Them: "Crap, I have to work late. Let's meet on Saturday and just bang out some work all afternoon."<p>We're fucked. We're fucked before we've even started. If every "dinner with a friend" or "I have to work late" is going to sideline you, then how the hell are you supposed to <i>do</i> anything? Even if we do work for six hours on Saturday instead of three two-hour sessions during the week, it's just not the same. We'll have no cadence or rhythm and feel stressed and probably a lot like the people in the OP's study.<p>A few years ago I recognized this anti-pattern and so I don't really take on new projects or goals unless I'm literally willing to prioritize everything but the bare essentials (ie. family) above it. PG's "Top of Your Mind" describes what 'mental prioritization' looks like, and I think this study points describes what 'schedule prioritization' looks like.<p>I realize that my own conclusions are my projections completely based on own anecdotes, and I'm sure many people on HN won't hesitate to point out the logical fallacies for why that's dumb. But look back in your life and think about the times you've consistently said, "Sorry, I can't make it, I have to do X first." Did you eventually reach a level of achievement with X? I'm guessing you probably did.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html</a>

The methodology used in this study raises some questions (which were exacerbated by the poor interpretation on the part of the writer) and makes me quite hesitant. First, the link between leisure time and "eliteness" is incredibly weak: free time is a product of a myriad things, and tends to be quite volatile. Moreover, the piece explicitly states that the two groups were destines for largely divergent career paths. Two people who do two different but related jobs likely still spend time in very different ways. For whatever reason, this person seems infatuated with conflating correlation and causation. Frankly, I just don't see how one can draw any conclusion between something as nebulous as free time and something as specific as musical ability. The author doesn't even attempt to prove me wrong.<p>Second, the author proceeds to extrapolates these results and asserts that everyone ought to adhere to this method of practice. Why? Is there any evidence whatsoever that sugests this is universal, or at the very least common to a few fields? All that is given is this research that is pertinent only to music students. It seems as though laborious, high-stress situations might be preferable to a casual but "deliberate" schedule in a lot of instances. Entrepreneurship and Academics are two domains that come to mind...<p>This piece is just a very poor interpretation and extrapolation of very specific correlative data. I don't buy these conclusions.

Things like this bug me because it's taken on a small set of people and immediately categorises them out. In the big, bad real world super smart people still end up burning the candle at both ends at periods of time because <i>they have to</i>.<p>Look at our start up folk heroes, super smart geniuses who work 18 hours a day, network for 2 and sleep for 4. <i>They're</i> busy because <i>they have to be busy</i>. If you're busy it's because you're busy.

I dont buy it. Unless your wasting your time on pointless busy work like trying to decide what color a link should be, hard work has always worked for me.

I can see the glimmer of the lesson in here - but it is a slippery bugger.<p>I suggest that there are concepts and capabilities that the elite have that average do not. Let's call it complier design or writing prolog.<p>Writing an enterprises decision engine in Prolog can save time effort energy, maintenance and be worth a fortune in a competitive Market.<p>But if you are the Prolog programmer, being able to perform is like being Yehudi Menuhin out busking. The elite player needs an orchestra and a concert hall and ticket sales.<p>Start up founders usually are busy building the concert hall, handing out flyers and selling tickets. A very rare few also play the violin well. No major corporation is going to turn up on HN asking for Prolog devs to rewrite an engine.

I'm curious how this would work out if they had studied amateurs taking up a new craft from scratch instead of jumping into their established lives. Have a large group take some sort of test to measure starting ability then give them the journals and a set amount of time to learn.<p>When time is up (say a few months to year?) have them come back and review the progress objectively along with their scheduled journals to find patterns between relative progression and time utilization.<p>My completely subjective opinion is that in a strongly controlled study you'd never get such black &#38; white results. There are people who have a better natural ability to learn certain tasks than others. While I played an instrument in school I was never phenomenal but I exceeded many kids who practiced several hours a week to my <i>maybe</i> combined time of an hour weekly.<p>Gaming is similar: get a group of friends to all pick up a new game and play it for an eve, judge who got better by the end and there will always be stand-outs. Some people will have adapted abilities and skills from other games/tasks to advance; others may pick a important subset of the overall skills and hone that for the time to develop a depth of knowledge while possibly lacking a breadth but the skill gap almost always develops and you can't contribute that to time invested so much as natural ability to adapt.

Someone asked the question "how does this apply to coding?" Yes, how would "hard practice time" apply to coding. Is that the time when you're actually head-down writing code? What about the time when you're <i>not</i> head-down, in your hard work and, for example, mulling how to get past a point where you're stuck? And is there an analogous activity for musicians - when they are not "hard practicing" but working through something in their minds?

This is about learning a very specific skill that requires a lot of practice and building a "muscle memory". To some extent this applies to students and some top sportsman, too. For the rest of us, however, most of the work related problems are not about us not being skillful enough, but about the amount of (fairly simple) things that need to be done. That's what's eating time for most of us: easy tasks, but lots of them, day after day...

On isolation of work from leisure:<p>"The average players, they discovered, spread their work throughout the day. The elite players, by contrast, consolidated their work into two well-defined periods."<p>"This isolation of work from leisure had pronounced effects in other areas of the players’ lives. Consider, for example, sleep: the elite players slept an hour more per night than the average players."

I do believe this, but how did these elite develop this capacity? For me it is a juggling act right now. I am working full-time, in addition to side projects that I hope will take off. If I were to graph it, it would probably looks something like this, ▁▁▃▂███, in terms of hours/effort, in the years timescale. You start off small, working your 8-4 job, realize you need to develop this capability to work on side project, there is an uptick in hours/effort till you can transition to your next gig. Then it tappers off as you make the transition. I hope it will looks something like this in a couple years ▁▁▃▂███▃▂▂▂▂. Where you are in life also make a massive difference. If you have the wherewithal to just transition, and weather the storm, then you are probably much better off.<p>I like to race sailboats. It is amazing how mistakes/achievements can snowball quickly. Your goal is to get the snow ball going to the right direction ;)

1) Violin playing is maybe one of the most extreme examples you can study because it requires specific talent as well as extremely hard work. How many of the elite players start out with perfect pitch and perfect hand anatomy? Maybe the rigid work schedule evolves when you start out with a specific talent.<p>2) I've met a couple of kids that took a year off from everything else and followed a rigorous schedule as described in the article. Their goal was to see if they can make it as professionals but ultimately decided they just couldn't keep up with the elite.<p>I think following a strict practice schedule is necessary but definitely not sufficient to becoming elite. Probably the non-elites figure out pretty quickly where they stand and simply opt out of the rat race.

Is it okay, if I am busy setting that right?<p>It is disgusting to see all these half-baked, half-assed and half-minded articles that don't see the whole picture paraded as gospel here.<p>I don't mind what you do with your life.But the blood is on your hands, if some young kid takes this for advice.

Cool, but I don't know how this applies to things that aren't as measurable as musical ability. What about more intangible things like creative or critical thinking? Also, the violin hasn't changed in hundreds of years, which means the value of the time you spend getting good at it will never depreciate. How does that change with something like computer programming?

I think a lot of it also has to do with HOW you practice, so much that doing it in chunks just happens to be the result.<p>In other words, the focus on improving certain specific things which are better to do in chunks. Those that just repeat can do it in small bursts. Your technique of learning determines if your practice will be chunky or not, not the other way around.

Good research although in my opinion the researchers stopped digging too soon. For instance their sleep patterns could've been examined more throroughly (as per the supermemo sleep article). Another point is that deliberate practice is good if you aim to be a good "worker", not necessarily a good entrepreneur or innovator.

&#62; ... the elite players were significantly more relaxed than the average players, and the best of the best were the most relaxed of all.<p>Presumably the best players also KNOW that they are the best--doesn't that make it easier to relax? How do you control for this?

An interesting tidbit from the abstract of the study: "Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 yrs."

Many people will see the title, realise that if they actual were busy then they would not be reading about people who are busy. But worth a read though, just for a time out :).

If you're not busy, you should come look after my kids.

Every time I think I'm finally going to stop hearing the term tiger mom, it shows up again...

How might deliberate practice translate into improving as a coder?

This kind of attitude is so insulting to me. Go walk into any minimum wage job or factory job and say this to people there with a straight face.<p>This is privileged people mistaking their privilege for the reason for their success instead of a result of it.