Learning Requires Practice

Last night I sat down to practice guitar and I once again reminded myself how important it is to practice when learning any skill. Playing my guitar is not the only thing I practiced yesterday and I realized that I spent most of my day practicing.

I woke up in the morning and spent an hour skiing before work. My wife joined me and we had a fairly relaxed morning until we headed up the Little Cloud chairlift at Snowbird. Then we got caught in a snowstorm that reduced visibility to about 10 feet. White snow in a white cloud on a white slope made it impossible to see anything but my skis in front of me. While I normally ski that run at 50 miles per hour or faster, I came down at a gingerly 15. Once we descended below the cloud, I remarked to my wife that I practiced skiing blind. She agreed.

Next I practiced my computer skills at work. I am hosting a technology workshop for the department next month and we will be using a new whiteboarding-collaboration tool that I spent time exploring. Any time I learn a new tool, it can be considered practice. I practice with computer software a lot.

When my workday ended, I needed to wax a couple pairs of skis. While I have done a fair amount of ski tuning, every time I pull out the waxing iron I learn something new. Sometimes it is just how hot the waxing iron gets. Last night I learned that if I turn the iron up 5 degrees warmer than recommended, the wax spreads so much easier. You do run the risk of burning the wax but the job takes about 20% less time.

Then I sat down with my guitar. I've been practicing the guitar for quite a few years but there is a lot to learn. One thing the guitar reminded me is that I don't need to practice stuff I know well. Instead I should practice things that are difficult. Last night I worked on some specific chords along with different fingering styles. I sort of felt like a beginner all over again. Fortunately that just means I learned something.

When you sit down in front of your computer and things don't seem to make sense, don't get frustrated. Instead look at it as an opportunity to learn something. What are you missing? Is there a step you skipped over? Is the answer somewhere else on the screen and you just keep looking in the wrong place? Fortunately someone has probably already had the same question and it is just a matter of doing an Internet search and you shouldn't be stuck too long.