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Concept

Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice is the method of improving a skill by working just beyond your current ability on a specific weakness, with immediate and honest feedback, a term from the psychologist Anders Ericsson's research that Cal Newport applies to knowledge work.

The idea comes from Anders Ericsson, whose research on expert performers, from violinists to chess players, found that their edge was explained less by inborn talent or hours logged than by a particular kind of practice: effortful, aimed at what they could not yet do, and checked against clear feedback. In So Good They Can't Ignore You, Newport borrows the concept and points it at ordinary jobs. Musicians and athletes practise this way as a matter of course, he observes, while most knowledge workers do not: once they reach an acceptable level, they keep doing what they already do well, and their skills plateau. Because work rarely forces the stretch, it has to be chosen. Newport describes it as uncomfortable by nature, the strain of holding attention on something hard, and argues that this discomfort is the sign that career capital is being built, not a sign that you are in the wrong place. In practice it means picking one sub-skill, setting a level you cannot reach yet, getting feedback from someone who will tell you the truth, and repeating. Carol Dweck's growth mindset helps here: it lets the strain read as learning rather than as proof of a limit.

A real-life example

Ece, a junior UX researcher in Ankara, had written dozens of interview reports, all at the same level. She picked one weakness: her recommendations were vague. For a month she rewrote the final section of every report until each recommendation named a screen, a change and a way to measure it, and she asked her team lead to mark every vague sentence in red. The first weeks were full of red marks. By the fourth report, the product team was acting on her recommendations without a follow-up meeting.

How to use it

  1. 1Choose one sub-skill of your job where you are clearly not yet at the level of the best people around you.
  2. 2Arrange honest feedback on it at least once a week, from a colleague, a client or a measurable result.
  3. 3Read the strain of working at that edge as a sign the practice is working, and keep the sessions short and focused.