Here, then, are the six keys to achieving excellence we've found are most effective for our clients:
Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and
perseverance.
1.
Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most
great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult
work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the
2.
Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything - Tony Schwartz - Harvard Busin... http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html
1 of 2 11/21/2010 1:08 PM
work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the
most energy and the fewest distractions.
Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then
take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the
highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers
practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.
3.
Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the
more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however,
can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.
4.
Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to
rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right
hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.
5.
Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister
has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is
to ritualize them — build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do
them without having to squander energy thinking about them.
Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and
perseverance.
1.
Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most
great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult
work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the
2.
Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything - Tony Schwartz - Harvard Busin... http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html
1 of 2 11/21/2010 1:08 PM
work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the
most energy and the fewest distractions.
Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then
take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the
highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers
practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.
3.
Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the
more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however,
can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.
4.
Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to
rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right
hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.
5.
Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister
has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is
to ritualize them — build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do
them without having to squander energy thinking about them.
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