An analogy between drum practice and a career
Image by Johnson Martin from Pixabay
Five weeks ago, on day 1539 of learning Bleed, I doubled my efforts in drum playing from 15 minutes per day to 30 minutes per day. Up until the 9th of October, it felt as if I had almost stagnated for about 6-9 months. It is very nice to see the results now and wow, what a difference it made to increase the efforts. For the past 36 days I have finally felt steady progress again. I suspect that after 4-5 years of daily practice I had reached a skill level on the drums where 15 minutes just isn’t enough to advance anymore. It’s an interesting observation because I have seen similar patterns in my professional life.
There is an obvious solution to bring back progress with only the 15 min/day approach, and that would be to just choose to learn another song. Preferably a very different one or even in a different genre, than this absolute monster of a song that Bleed is. That would be analogous to acquiring a new skill on a pretty much blank slate. The better you become at something, the more difficult growth and progression will become. That is without a doubt the reason that I always shifted instruments every 12 months in the past. I have been doing this unconditional daily practice thing since 2013, so I base my claims on ten years of (daily) experience. During the first year of daily practice, progression is so fast that it feels like a rocket aiming for the stars. And from year two, progress noticeably slows down. It’s the famous 80/20 rule once again. The first 80% can be done in a year. But the remaining 20% takes another four or five years, at least. Perhaps even a lot more.
That’s why this Bleed project is so captivating for me. I am trying something else to see what happens. You can practice until you can play something, and that is fine. But my target here is to practice until I never fail. And that is a completely different story, which probably requires 10X the amount of practice time. One of my major shortcomings in life is that I am exceptionally bad at focusing on a specific task for a prolonged period. My mind redirects itself constantly and effortlessly. I am interested in almost anything, and that means my attention behaves like a spaceship flying through an asteroid field, where every rock has the gravitation of a black hole. It is quite exhausting honestly. That’s why I am eternally grateful for my practice sessions. At least I have one thing in my life where I have rock solid focus on the task at hand. For those 15-30 minutes, my life is indeed perfect. I hope that this musical ritual will reveal other areas in my life where I learn to apply the same discipline, and that I shall discover the methods of how to do so. It will come to me sooner or later; I am convinced about that. As long as I keep showing up. Actually, I did realize the other day that I have another daily ritual where I have the same samurai focus: Bedtime reading with the boys. We read to them every night and have created a little library. Moments like that are peak life, and anything less than complete mindfulness will be something I regret later in life.
In the beginning, I mentioned that I had seen similar patterns in my work. Since always, I have invested a lot of my time in education. It has been a passion of mine. But the last year, things have really started to take off on the business side. We are developing some smarter workflows in acoustic consulting, and it is the first time that I can seriously feel that my work is making a proper impact. There is meaning. And best of all, I am good at it, and I find it very fun and pleasurable. During 2023, that has resulted in me quitting my position at the University and retreating from speaking/education engagements that do not fully align with the scope of our business idea. I.e., focus. In hindsight, I was on a path that certainly would have brought financial bankruptcy or burnout. Probably both.
I suppose that practice makes perfect and after 15 years as an acoustician with not 15 min/day of practice, but rather 8-10 hours per day, we get more than 30 000 hours. And someone said that it takes 10 000 to make an expert. I think this is fully analogous to my drum sessions. I have reached a skill level as an acoustician that demands that I resign from as many commitments as possible unless they are 100% aligned with the long-term goals and vision. I only know one way to work smarter, not harder, and that way must always begin by removing things from your life. Not until you have removed stuff and created some space, can you bring new stuff onboard. A career also fills up your life over time, and definitely so if you want a sporting chance at keeping the nuclear family intact. That’s why you must get rid of stuff with time. And if you don’t do it by yourself, the universe will do it for you. The crucial difference is that the universe will be much more ruthless in choosing the things to get rid of. And that might include things that you might want to hang on to a lot more than a career. It is much better if you make those choices yourself.
Focus.