‘The Similarity Between Talent And Email-Clutter’ – Sean D’Souza’s Article

“No, not a day”, this friend would answer. “I get just 20 emails a
day.” But I check my email weekly.

At this point, you want to hold back, but you can’t help yourself.

“Why don’t you check your email every day?” is what you’d ask. And
the friend would stubbornly say, “Ah, I have no time. I can only
check it once a week.”

But you can see the downside of this obstinate behaviour, can’t you?

If you check 140 emails a week, a lot of things happen. So let’s
make a list of things that instantly go wrong.

1) There’s just too much to cope with at one go.
2) It’s hard to sort out the important and the urgent from the
crappy stuff.
3) If there’s an urgent matter that you’ve ignored for an entire
week, that something is going to come back and bite you in the
butt, big time.

Which is kinda how talent works

If I go for a  watercolour class, I go once a week. So guess what?
Let’s say the class is on a Tuesday. Then I don’t do much on
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday is when I start
thinking about practicing. And before I know it–yup, you got
it–it’s Tuesday.

And this is why most of us never acquire skills at the pace we
should

We always seem to have no time. But what good is all that mumbling
and grumbling? You can’t acquire adequate skill by dipping your toe
in it once a week. The only way is to practice and learn every day.

Without the daily check in, your brain struggles

If you learn every day, your brain goes through steps.

1) It learns a lot. And it kinda forgets most of the stuff.
2) The next day, it tries to remember, but fails.
3) This is when the brain is most alert. It has failed. So it pays
attention.
4) The following day you remember even more. And you make more
mistakes.
5) The more mistakes you make the more your brain struggles.
6) The more it struggles the more it seeks to remember.
7) By the end of the week, you remember a lot more and are a just a
smidgen faster than you were at the start of the week.

Smidgens don’t add up. They become exponential

At first, there’s too much to cope with, so your brain struggles
like crazy. Of course the cranky ones give up at this point. But
the smart ones keep at it. They don’t attempt to do it all. Just a
little bit every day, so the struggle is manageable.

And in time those smidgens get together and boof–it’s like cycling

One minute you’re falling all over the place. The next minute you
have balance and momentum. And suddenly you have far less struggle.

Struggle is sorting through 140 emails in your brain

Time is of no consequence. If you don’t clear those 20 emails a
day, they pile up to 40, then 80. And when you get to them, they
seem not like 40–but more like 500.

At this point you begin to detest dealing with email. And the same
applies to whatever skill you’ve been trying to apply. You suddenly
think you’re not talented, when it’s really a matter of daily
diligence.

But often you need help–so listen up if you’re a teacher/consultant

Your students can’t deal with a ton of stuff. So break up your
course into daily practice. We do this on all our course–and every
big skill acquisition course we ever have at Psychotactics.

Every day is mapped out. Every break is mapped out. Every public
holiday is taken into consideration. And there’s no escape for
those who don’t show up every day–they just get barred from the
course.

As a teacher you have to lay down the rules, because for starters,
it forces you to think through the tiny steps the students have to
take. And in turn, you have to enforce the daily practice,
rewarding those who show up and physically booting out the slackers
that don’t.

Talent acquisition is not a question of having time–or not having
time. It’s about daily practice.

Tackling 140 emails at a time is for the dunderheads.

Don’t be one. If you’re teaching, break it up. If you’re learning,
break it up. And suddenly those smidgens come together. Suddenly
you’re, um, talented.

Because ‘weekly’ doesn’t work as well.
‘Bi-weekly’ barely seems better.
All that really works is daily practice.

Get started today!

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