Deliberate practice is usually legible practice, meaning that it can be observed, socially coordinated, and evaluated. Legibile forms of deliberate practice are easy to do in a classroom, sports team, or computer program. They are also easy to enforce and incentivize. Almost every form of deliberate practice you have ever been required to do has been some form of legible practice.
Mental practice is illegible. Almost certainly, you have rarely, if ever, been asked to do it, and with even more confidence, I can say that you haven’t been graded on it.
Yet mental practice has some key advantages.
It allows the practitioner to use observation of their own internal state to both invent and execute forms of deliberate practice.
It is unconstrained by the need for observability, coordination, or evaluation, which relieves anxiety and other cognitive burdens.
The ability of the mind to flexibly construct, combine, and iterate on visual, audio, and kinetic representations of the practice task surpasses the iterative power of agile software development.
Developing the ability to simulate and solve practice problems in the mind directly develops fundamental cognitive skills, such as the ability to let the mind wander among a set of related thoughts on a focused topic, or the ability to hold and mentally manipulate symbols in order to construct a problem-solving strategy.
Mental practice builds skill in problem factorization, simplification, and planning, since the practitioner must work without forms of external memory aid.
Mental practice removes the mechanical discomforts associated with many forms of legible practice. It doesn’t require sitting, staring into a computer screen, or hand cramps.
Mental practice allows the practitioner to elaborate on the inner experience to add virtues and ways to be playful and stimulated that are not considered by designers of legible practice.
Legible practice is clearly useful, but I think we overinvest in it for reasons unrelated to its effectiveness in promoting learning.
Autodidacts are intrinsically motivated to learn, can do it on their own, are not under pressure to sell an educational product or service. They need not find a way to make their techniques scientifically publishable. Autodidacts are best positioned to develop the arts of mental practice.
The advantages of mental practice
Deliberate practice is usually legible practice, meaning that it can be observed, socially coordinated, and evaluated. Legibile forms of deliberate practice are easy to do in a classroom, sports team, or computer program. They are also easy to enforce and incentivize. Almost every form of deliberate practice you have ever been required to do has been some form of legible practice.
Mental practice is illegible. Almost certainly, you have rarely, if ever, been asked to do it, and with even more confidence, I can say that you haven’t been graded on it.
Yet mental practice has some key advantages.
It allows the practitioner to use observation of their own internal state to both invent and execute forms of deliberate practice.
It is unconstrained by the need for observability, coordination, or evaluation, which relieves anxiety and other cognitive burdens.
The ability of the mind to flexibly construct, combine, and iterate on visual, audio, and kinetic representations of the practice task surpasses the iterative power of agile software development.
Developing the ability to simulate and solve practice problems in the mind directly develops fundamental cognitive skills, such as the ability to let the mind wander among a set of related thoughts on a focused topic, or the ability to hold and mentally manipulate symbols in order to construct a problem-solving strategy.
Mental practice builds skill in problem factorization, simplification, and planning, since the practitioner must work without forms of external memory aid.
Mental practice removes the mechanical discomforts associated with many forms of legible practice. It doesn’t require sitting, staring into a computer screen, or hand cramps.
Mental practice allows the practitioner to elaborate on the inner experience to add virtues and ways to be playful and stimulated that are not considered by designers of legible practice.
Legible practice is clearly useful, but I think we overinvest in it for reasons unrelated to its effectiveness in promoting learning.
Autodidacts are intrinsically motivated to learn, can do it on their own, are not under pressure to sell an educational product or service. They need not find a way to make their techniques scientifically publishable. Autodidacts are best positioned to develop the arts of mental practice.