How To Sabi One Thing Well Well While You Dey Work Full Time

You don pick the thing already. Maybe na guitar, maybe na writing, maybe na the part of your work wey you wan make people know you well for. You no dey find hobby, and you no dey find permission. You wan sabi am well well, sabi reach say person wey dey do this thing as their work go look your work nod their head, and you don ready to spend years to reach there.

Then you go dey find method, but every single one dem write am for person wey get four free hours every day. Ten thousand hours. Morning wey dey start by five. Timetable wey nobody need anything from you before afternoon.

You get about five hours every week. That one no be small version of the real thing, na the normal amount wey plenty people get, and e dey enough. The method just dey come down to one decision: make you narrow the skill until e fit fit inside the hours wey you really get, then you point all of dem to that one same small place.

How good I fit really become for four or five hours every week?

You fit good for one particular thing, if you point every one of those hours to that same small target. Wetin five hours every week no fit buy na the whole discipline for once, na why the people wey reach somewhere with limited time dey chase one part of am instead of everything.

Do the maths once, because e go change how the next two years go feel. Five hours every week na 260 hours every year and small pass 500 for two years. Five hundred hours na serious amount of work, and where e go land depend fully on where you dey aim. If you point am to one small thing, everything go gather for one place. If you spread am for the whole discipline, you go touch everything but you no go own anything. Same hours, different result, and the only thing wey you change na the size of the target.

The evidence about practice dey honest about this one. One meta-analysis wey cover every major area wey people don study deliberate practice found say e dey explain 26 percent of the difference for how people perform for games, 21 percent for music, 18 percent for sports, 4 percent for education and under 1 percent for professions. The people wey write the study conclude say practice matter but e no matter reach how people don dey talk am. Read this one as something wey useful, no be something wey go discourage you: the hours matter, and how you aim dem matter at least as much, and that na exactly the lever wey person wey get work dey hold for hand.

Wetin be sub skill, and how I go fit choose one?

Sub skill na small piece of the discipline wey small reach make you practice am for ordinary Tuesday and clear reach make you sabi whether e don move. No be the whole guitar, na barre chords wey you dey play clean for ninety beats per minute. No be the whole writing, na the openings wey dey make person read the second paragraph.

Test any candidate with three questions. You fit practice am for one hour without setting up anything? You fit see the difference between month one and month three without asking anybody? And e go make the parts wey dey near am for the discipline become easy, no be say e go just dey sit for corner alone?

The third question na the one wey people dey skip, and na the one wey pay back the most. Barre chords go open most of the guitar. Sight reading go open most of the piano. One clean opening paragraph go improve every document wey you touch for work, meaning say the practice go start to pay you back straight inside your work. Choose the sub skill wey other things dey hang on top am, and that small choice go stop to feel like sacrifice.

If you never see the sub skill yet, borrow one. Find person wey dey two or three years ahead of you, check wetin dem fit do wey you no fit do, and write down the smallest piece wey you fit repeat. Then run am through the three questions wey dey up. Plenty people already sabi their answer, dem just dey avoid am, because the sub skill wey go move dem most na usually the one wey no sweet to practice and the one wey people wey dey watch no go easily see.

How I go work out the hours wey I really get?

Write down the hours wey you really get before you write the plan, and count only the ones wey go survive bad week, no be the ones wey dey only for good week. Plenty people dey plan based on their best week, then dem miss am for three ordinary weeks, and then dem conclude say dem no get discipline.

Do am for paper for ten minutes. Go through one normal week hour by hour and mark only the blocks wey be your own real real: nobody else dey claim am, you dey awake, and you never tire reach say the hour go waste. Add dem together. Whatever that number be, na your real budget, and any plan wey you build on top am go still dey work by March.

Then cut am down. Plan for about seventy percent of wetin you count, because plan wey only dey work when you get full capacity go break the first time somebody fall sick. If the honest number na six hours, build four hour week. To beat your plan na better habit pass to dey owe am, and the energy wey you get na truer limit pass the time wey you get, and that na the point wey Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy make years ago, and plenty people still dey plan against am till today.

How I go sabi say e dey work when the whole discipline still far away?

Judge the sub skill, no be the whole discipline. The whole discipline dey move too slow to give you feedback for monthly scale, and to measure yourself with am na how motivated people dey talk theirself comot from project wey actually dey go fine.

Choose one measure wey you fit take for five minutes, and take am every few weeks. The tempo wey you fit play the passage clean. How many attempts e take you to land the shot. How long e take you to draft one page. Write am down for somewhere wey you go keep am, because your memory of how bad you be for month one no dey trustworthy for one particular direction: e dey flatter the past and e dey make the present look flat.

Take one recording once every quarter too. One three minute clip of you doing the thing, save am and date am, na the only honest record wey you go get, and to put March beside December go do more for your morale pass any streak counter. E also dey do something wey no comfortable but wey useful well well: e go show you the one fault wey don dey sit there since the beginning, wey na the next thing to point your hours at.

Keep the target where e dey. To narrow the skill na tactic to reach further, no be consolation because you get job. You no dey lower the promise from genuinely good to just good enough. You dey point the same ambition to something wey small reach make you actually hit am, and that na wetin dey make hitting am likely.

Genuinely good still be the promise

The objection wey dey under all of this no dey really about method. Na quiet belief say the people wey become good must don get more time pass you.

KEEP CALM founder, Kaʻohele Carlos, build design career for one big technology company and e still dey become good for other things alongside am, without light schedule for any point. E hustle the whole way and e find ways to stay calm through am, and both halves of that sentence carry weight. The calm no be the prize wey dey wait for the end. Na wetin keep the hours coming for twenty years.

So name the sub skill this week. Write down the hours wey you honestly get, cut dem by one third, and point every one of dem to that one small thing for the next ninety days, for the same slot every time, because repetition for consistent context na wetin dey turn plan to something automatic. Ninety days of that one no be small play, and the two years wey e dey sit inside no be small play too. Genuinely good still dey be the target the whole way, for full work week, and that na the version wey almost nobody believe say dey available.

Where We Get Our Info

• PubMed, Deliberate Practice And Performance For Music, Games, Sports, Education, And Professions: A Meta-Analysis
• Harvard Business Review, Manage Your Energy, No Be Your Time
• National Institutes of Health, PubMed Central, How To Make Health Become Habit: The Psychology Of 'Habit-Formation' And General Practice