
A friend of mine just sent me this short article that explains why some people are great violin players and why other people are only average violin players. I highly recommend you read it.
The secret is the great violin players set aside concentrated, focused 2-hour blocks of time to practice twice each day. The average violin players do not.
Working with great focus on a difficult subject for only 3-4 hours a day separates the great from the average. Then the rest of the day the great violin players can relax and stop thinking about playing. In other words, “If you’re busy you’re doing it wrong.”
This is a big challenge for me.
I have a couple talks coming up this week. I gotta double down and focus on them. Planning, writing and practicing a talk is consuming and hard work. I’ll start with 1.5 hours in the morning, 1.5 hours in the afternoon of focused work. I won’t check email or do other, smaller tasks during that time. Let’s see how this works out!