Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cutrell and in today's episode we're talking about deliberate practice and performance tuning. This is part one of a two part discussion on this topic. Today's episode is sponsored by Refactor U, the 10-week JavaScript boot camp that is helping people redefine their careers. We will talk more about what Refactor U has to offer later on in today's episode. We're going to be talking about a subject that we have somewhat underserved here on Developer Tea, the subject of practice today. We do talk about practice quite a bit on the show, but it's mostly impassing and I want to correct that. Practice is a misunderstood word and often we forget how to practice as we move throughout our careers. We talked about learning how to learn on this show, but now we want to talk about learning how to practice. And if you're thinking the two are related, of course they are, and some of the things that we talk about when we have the meta discussion on learning how to learn, certainly apply to practice as well. I'm talking to you today about how you can tune your performance through practice. This isn't a one size fits all discussion, but rather it should get your mind working and get you some ideas, some inspiration towards what it means to practice deliberately and how you can always be in a state of simply getting better as a way of life. In today's episode we'll start by differentiating different skills of work and where practice fits. We'll talk about what is and what is not practice and how practice commonly gets misplaced. In the next episode, we're going to discuss how you can cultivate an attitude of constant practice. So what is deliberate practice? What steps are required to engage in deliberate practice? And I want to start by talking about some of the things that deliberate practice is not. And this is where I may split with some of the definitions that you've read online. Deliberate practice is not simple repetition, just going over and doing the same thing over and over. Of course, hopefully you know that by now you can't do the same thing over and over and expect new results. But deliberate practice is also not that flow state that we've talked about before. The flow state is when you have something that is just challenging enough that you are able to accomplish it, but only through hard work. That is also not deliberate practice. Now the interesting thing is flow state is a positive state for most of you who are producing work on a day-to-day basis. You need to utilize the concept of flow state in order to get a lot done. And people who are constantly in flow state have been shown to be happier in general. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today we are talking about deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is engaging in an activity or a set of activities with the specific goal, the specific goal of improving performance. The most common examples that we hear about all the time that are used in discussions around deliberate practice are usually like athletes and musicians. But no one should be exempt from engaging in deliberate practice if they are seeking to become better and becoming experts at what they do if that's their ultimate goal. So here are the steps necessary to engage in deliberate practice. Number one, you need to find a challenge that pushes your limits to the point of failure. Number two, you need to have it readily available evaluation, hopefully for my source other than yourself. And number three, you need to repeat the same exercise with modifications based on the feedback you received in step. Number two, so let's unpack that a little bit. Number one, a challenge that pushes your limits to the point of failure. In other words, it needs to be sufficiently difficult. It should be very hard for you to accomplish these things. Not so out of your reach that you failed before you even start trying, but a challenge that pushes your limits to the point of failure. In contrast to the flow state, the challenge that you have in the flow state is just at the limit where you succeed. When you engage in deliberate practice, you are practicing to the point of failure. In other words, the thing that you have set up for yourself, you are more likely to fail at it than not. Step two, readily available evaluation, particularly if you can get it from a source other than yourself. This means you need to have someone who looks at the work that you're doing and who can give you feedback on that work that you are unable to give to yourself. This can be someone like a coach or a mentor, particularly if you have someone in your job that has more experience than you do and they're willing to set aside some time to help you improve. And we'll talk about this a little bit more later on in the episode, but the challenge that you choose in step one and the feedback that you receive in step two needs to be very narrow. It needs to be very pointed. Again, we'll talk about that more later on in the episode. Number three, repeating the same exercise with modifications based on feedback. This is essentially employing the scientific method. You create some sort of exercise that you repeat with the previous exercise in mind and you use the feedback from the previous exercise to judge your performance in the following exercise. So some forms of practice may be as simple as code cotta. Some other forms of practice may be refactoring a piece of code that is in an actual production project. We'll talk a little bit more about what your practice sessions as a developer can look like right after this quick sponsor break. Today's episode is sponsored by Refactor U with Refactor U. You can reinvent yourself with a full stack JavaScript bootcamp. If you're learning to code online, but you're hitting a brick wall, Refactor U is an immersive full stack JavaScript bootcamp dedicated to learning needs of aspiring web developers who are looking to reinvent themselves. It's 10 weeks long. They have a dedicated career services team. In other words, once you get through the 10 weeks, they aren't just dropping you. They're hoping to place you in some employee position. They are GI Bill approved. It's based in the booming tech city of Boulder, Colorado. Absolutely beautiful place. If you've never been, you should at least plan a trip to Boulder, Colorado to say hello to the people at Refactor U and check out how gorgeous this place is. They also have diversity scholarships available for each cohort. On top of all of this, Refactor U is offering a 20% that's an entire fifth, 20% discount on your tuition when you mention Developer Tea. It's a huge deal. Go and check it out. Spec.fm slash refactor. Thanks again to Refactor U for sponsoring Developer Tea. So we've outlined some basic steps that you need to take to engage in deliberate practice. Number one, find a challenge that pushes your limits to the point of failure. Number two, engage in readily available evaluation, particularly if you can find it from a source other than yourself. And number three, repeat the same exercise with specific modifications based on the feedback you received in step two. On top of these steps, though, you must approach the practice, the deliberate practice, with the following in mind. Number one, the practice should not have competing priorities. The practice should not have competing priorities. In other words, all efforts during deliberate practice are pointed at increasing performance. This prohibits taking shortcuts or hiding the reality of the failure to save a relationship. Practice should therefore always be done in very low stakes situations. So in other words, you shouldn't engage in practice on a project that has an upcoming deadline. You shouldn't engage in practice when the budget is tight for that particular piece of work. The practice needs to be 100% focused. All of your efforts need to be focused on increasing your performance. Number two, practice is not just doing the same thing you do every other day. We've talked about this already in today's episode, but let's go a little bit more in detail. We'll talk about this even more in the next episode because this is the common mental state, the common idea of what practice means doing the same thing over and over. Deliberate practice should not be easy. Doing the same thing over and over every day is easy. Repeating the same tasks every day will provide an ever-decreasing return on your invested time. The idea of the 10,000 hour rule does not include simply going about your normal every day routine and as a developer, it's easy to get into a routine of writing code that looks and performs just like yesterday's code. We should never fool ourselves into thinking that this is deliberate practice. No matter how long you've been a developer, deliberate practice should be difficult. And that leads us to number three. Practice is tiring. Practice is absolutely exhausting. Don't think you can go into work and practice for six hours straight every single day. You will be mentally drained and you may even feel a physical drain. So going back to the first thing that you need to keep in mind, the practice should not have competing priorities. You need to be 100% focused on increasing your performance. And number two, practice is not just doing the same thing you do every other day. It's not just going through the same process of writing code. You have to be challenged. It needs to be difficult. And number three, practice is incredibly draining. It's tiring. In the next episode, we're going to get a bit more into the specifics of how you can incorporate deliberate practice into your routine and how you can improve your attitude towards practice. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. Thank you again to Refactor U for sponsoring today's episode. Don't forget you can get 20% off your tuition when you mention Developer Tea. Refactor U's 10-week JavaScript training boot camp out in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Thank you so much for listening. If you know someone who would enjoy today's episode, make sure you send them a quick link. This is the most effective way to help other people discover the show. Of course, you can leave a review in iTunes. And if you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use to listen to this show. And today's episode is a perfect time to subscribe, especially if you don't want to miss out on part two of our discussion on deliberate practice coming out in two days from now. So go ahead and subscribe. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea. And until next time, enjoy your tea.