Taking shortcuts: Guess who gets cheated most?

Taking shortcuts: sketching in Lijiang

I’m a big fan of shortcuts. They save you time and energy. They demonstrate your ingenuity. (You, after all, found a faster way to get something done. Clever you.) They free you up for more important or interesting activities. I love shortcuts. When they work. Which, I’m finding out, isn’t as often as I thought. I had a recent reminder of this when I was in China a…

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If I’d only known this secret to mastery earlier

One secret to mastery is to break everything into small steps. For example, small steps like practicing 15 minutes every day turns out to be more effective than say, slogging through five hours of practice once a week. This applies to learning a musical instrument, acquiring a second language or improving your jump shot. Break anything into daily baby steps and you’ll go further faster. These small steps…

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