There’s a trap you can get yourself into. You take on a new type of task, probably professionally. You’re too concerned with being “productive” too quickly, but you’re new to the work. You lack expertise, so you make up for it by working harder and longer. The work begins to burn you out and you don’t seem to be making any headway. Years may pass without you improving your skill or efficiency, but now you’re also locked into your way of doing things. Your brain has mistaken time for expertise.
I’ve seen it happen often. Professionals with ten or more years on a task who don’t have certain fundamental skills in it. Why? Because they never gave themselves time to learn. Instead, they used all their available time right away trying to “produce,” never taking time to practice.
Practice isn’t the same as just doing. Yes, some skill gain happens over time without you concentrating on it. Some. Much, much more happens through deliberate learning. If you play basketball every day, you’ll get better at basketball. But you’ll get much better if you get coached, learn fundamentals that exist outside of the game actions, gather complimentary athletic skills, and so on. Without those things, even the modest skill gain you get from just playing will quickly plateau.
When I was in sales, I’d see this constantly. Someone would join the profession and just hit the pavement or the phones and start selling. They’d be desperate to hit quotas and make money so instead of dedicating any time to learning, they’d just dial or knock or what have you for hours extra every day. And they’d get a little better! Then they’d quickly level off in skill; now they can make an okay living by only working 60% harder than they should have, instead of twice as long. Meanwhile, they’ve still never read a book on selling, attended a workshop, sought mentorship, or anything else that might truly level them up.
Organizations can create this in their people. If the focus is constantly on production in the short term and not on knowledge and skill growth, employees can be funneled into this trap by the company they work for. This is as frequent as people doing it to themselves.
You learn pretty much everything you’ll learn “by osmosis” in the first year of a task. After that, you’re not going to be making any appreciable skill gains unless you’re actually seeking knowledge outside of your daily tasks. If it’s been a while since you’ve done that – now’s the time.
The Opportunity Machine 