Original articles, reproduced please indicate: reproduced since Keegan small steel and indicate the original links: http://keeganlee.me/post/full-stack/20170921 WeChat subscription number: keeganlee_me written in the 2017-09-21

The column address: xiaozhuanlan.com/fullstack

If you learn a new skill the way I showed you in my last post, whether it’s blockchain or a new programming language, a week is enough to get you started. It took me about a week to learn blockchain from no to no. It took me about an hour to commute to school every day, about two hours in the evening, and about three hours every day on weekends. It took me about 21 hours in total to get into the blockchain field from 0 to 1, and then I kept improving. And I learned blockchain from a global perspective, which is more forward-looking than some people who have learned blockchain development for half a year.

Of course, you do not have to follow this learning method to learn, if you have been in practice for a long time another set of system of learning methods and also very efficient, then continue to follow your original set of learning methods to learn, such as @ big head dragon students feedback learning method. If your study method is not efficient enough, then I suggest you try this method, after all, I have tried it myself, and it is much more efficient than my previous study method.

However, the previous several articles have talked about so much, mainly biased to how to learn a new knowledge from 0 to 1, this aspect of learning method is relatively easy to master, operation is relatively simple. But the methodology of how to go from 1 to N — from learning to mastery — is not easy to understand and difficult to operate, so many people struggle to achieve mastery even after a long time. This article is mainly to comb the methodology, to help you first form the correct cognition in your mind; The next article will look at how we will practice on the way to the full stack.

In short, there are only two methodologies for learning to master: the 10,000-hour rule and deliberate practice. However, many people do not understand the core part of these two methodologies, and even misunderstanding. Let’s talk about these two methodologies.

10,000 hour rule

I believe everyone should have heard the 10,000-hour rule, but not everyone has a correct understanding of it, many people actually have some misunderstanding, the following I will talk about a few more common.

The 10,000-hour rule, developed by Gladwell in his book Outliers, simply states that a person needs at least 10,000 hours of continuous practice in order to become an expert in a particular field. How long is 10,000 hours? If you work eight hours a day, five days a week, it will take at least five years. For someone who works very hard, it may be possible to reach expert level in three years, which is an average of 10 hours a day, including weekends.

The first misconception about the 10,000-hour rule is that if you practice for 10,000 hours, you will become an expert. This is the result of the mistaken understanding that 10,000 hours of practice is a necessary condition for becoming an expert, instead of a sufficient condition. It takes at least 10,000 hours to reach the level of an expert. But that doesn’t mean you can become an expert if you work for 10,000 hours. If you’re doing low-level repetition all the time, you can do it for ten years and you won’t be an expert. Don’t be someone who takes ten years of work experience for one year. Those 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are needed to become an expert. Deliberate practice is different from regular practice, more on that later.

The second myth is that it takes 10,000 hours to master each niche. For example, if you worked 10,000 hours to become an Android technologist, does it take another 10,000 hours to become proficient in iOS development? The answer is no. Android and iOS development are just a niche for engineers, and there are many niche capabilities that are common, such as coding, design, and architecture. You have reached the expert level of an Android engineer in 10,000 hours, which means you have mastered the general skills of an engineer. To expand the learning of iOS, you need to master the differentiated skills of iOS. Similarly, if you’ve already mastered Android, iOS, or H5 front-end development, it doesn’t take another 10,000 hours of hard work to get to the full stack.

The third myth is to understand 10,000 hours as an absolute value. Ten thousand hours is an average, but there are many other factors involved in determining how much time an individual needs, such as how efficient your learning method is and how quickly you break through bottlenecks. It takes twice as long if you study in the wrong and inefficient way.

The most important thing about the 10,000-hour rule, as described in the book Deliberate Practice, is that it takes years of hard work to achieve a successful career and become the best in any industry or field.

Deliberate practice

The 10,000-hour rule states only that a person needs to put in a lot of practice to excel, but not how. People who do not know how to practice correctly will develop very slowly, and even after years of effort, they will not reach the level of mastery. The person who knows how to do the right practice and keeps doing it will get better and better, and after about 10,000 hours, will eventually reach the goal and become a great person. And according to Anders Eriksson, the most effective form of practice is deliberate practice.

A common misconception about deliberate practice is that once you’ve reached an “acceptable” level of ability, you assume that just a few more years of “practice” will make you better. For example, if you are an outsourcing programmer, and now you can effectively complete the development work of an outsourcing project on your own, you may think that if you do more outsourcing projects, you will become better and better. But the truth is, anyone with any experience knows that you have stopped improving. This “practice,” which Anders Eriksson calls “naive practice,” is basically just doing something over and over again and hoping that that repetition alone will improve performance and performance.

Practice with purpose

Deliberate practice should first be deliberate practice. As opposed to “naive practice,” purposeful practice is more purposeful, thoughtful, and focused. It has four characteristics:

1. Have clearly defined specific goals

As we’ve said in previous articles, effective learning must be goal-oriented, and goals should be clear, regardless of the learning stage. Purposeful practice, mainly is “accumulate small wins for big wins” “accumulate silicon step so that thousands of miles”, finally achieve long-term goals. Therefore, each particular exercise should have a clearly defined goal, break down the larger goal into smaller goals, and break them down one by one. Specific decomposition approach can actually and I are in the previous article, “002 | I am learning to block chain” did.

Here’s a SMART rule about how to set goals:

  • -Blair: It’s not Specific
  • He has made it Measurable
  • Attainable: Attainable
  • Relevant: Relevant to other goals
  • Time-bound: Indicates the Time limit

2. Stay focused

When you practice, you have to stay focused and achieve a state called flow. Flow is defined this way: “The feeling of being fully engaged in what you are doing. When flow occurs, there is a high level of excitement and fulfillment.” How to get into flow is also mentioned in Super Individual: clear goals, immediate feedback, and a balance of skill and challenge. These three points are also characteristic of purposeful practice and will not be elaborated on in addition.

3. Include feedback

Feedback should be immediate, telling you whether you’re right or wrong, and using it to identify exactly where you’re missing and why, so you know how to improve. This is the main reason why the feedback learning method of @Dalong students is efficient.

In programming, the results of code execution are the most immediate and effective feedback. However, for more cognitively complex and abstract skills, such as architecture design, feedback is less direct and it is best to have a mentor. After all, it’s hard for you to tell if the structure you’re designing is sound, but great mentors have clear criteria.

You need to get out of your comfort zone

As mentioned in the previous article, learning can be divided into three zones: the comfort zone, the learning zone and the panic zone. You won’t improve your skill level if you practice in your comfort zone. The best way to keep improving is to keep practicing in the study area. When you keep turning your study zone into a comfort zone, you are making progress.

In addition, when you step out of your comfort zone, you will inevitably encounter some bottlenecks and it will be difficult to overcome them because you are doing something you have never done before. At this point, the usual solution is not “try to do something harder” but “try to do something different.” It is to change the Angle, change the method, rethink and solve the problem. However, it’s still best to have a mentor or coach to guide you, rather than trying to figure it out on your own.

It’s also important to find ways to stay motivated. Practicing a lot outside your comfort zone for a long time is not pleasant, and if you can’t keep motivated, it’s hard to stick to it.

So, to summarize, purposeful practice is this: get out of your comfort zone, but set clear goals in a focused way, create a plan for achieving those goals, and figure out ways to monitor your progress, and find ways to keep you motivated.

Other features of deliberate practice

Deliberate practice adds three features to the purposeful practice:

1. Deliberate practice develops skills that others have figured out how to improve

A skill that has figured out how to improve is a skill that has a set of effective training methods in place. Moreover, there should be objective criteria for evaluating superior performance in these skills. In the process of deliberate practice, with the continuous improvement of skills, the corresponding training methods also need to be constantly upgraded.

Deliberate practice requires a mentor who has already reached a certain level

The best mentors have been successful themselves, and they not only know what it takes to be great, but they also know what it takes to achieve it. If you can find a good mentor to guide you through deliberate practice, it will help you avoid many detources and will undoubtedly help you grow faster. As I said earlier, if you’re stuck in a rut, having a mentor is the best way to help you get through it, and he or she can provide immediate feedback.

For this column, I am your mentor. For engineers, though, it’s hard to have a consistent mentor. Another great mentor is the Internet, where you can find all kinds of learning materials and tools, as well as learning communities.

Deliberate practice involves creating more effective mental representations

The concept of mental representation is not easy to understand. By definition, a mental representation is a mental structure, concrete or abstract, that corresponds to an object, an idea, some information, or anything else that our brain is thinking about. One of the simplest examples is visual imagery. For example, at the mention of the Mona Lisa, many people immediately “see” the image of the famous oil painting; That image is their mental representation of the Mona Lisa.

Mental representation can also be understood as an understanding of some conceptual model. High-quality mental representations are more detailed and accurate. For example, the deeper the understanding of conceptual models such as MVC/MVP/MVVM, the stronger the mental representation.

The core purpose of deliberate practice is to create more and more effective mental representations.

conclusion

Simply put, it takes three to five years of deliberate and sustained practice to go from learning to mastering a field. Time is important, but more important is the process of practice. Get out of your comfort zone and set clear goals in a focused way, develop a plan for achieving those goals, figure out a way to monitor your progress, figure out a way to keep you motivated, preferably with a good mentor, and follow a proven training regimen. Finally, remember that the core purpose of deliberate practice is to create more and more effective mental representations.

Thinking and practice

What do the fast learning methods have in common with today’s methods? What are the differences? How did you get better? How exactly should today’s methodology be practiced?