Experts are rendered ineffective if constrained to operate under those same rules.

Novices need clear context-free rules by which they can operate.

Change in Perception

Recite: Summarize, take notes, and put in your own words.

Review: Reread, expand notes, and discuss with colleagues.

Most people, never get any higher than the second stage, advanced beginner

Hone a quick wit. Look for connections or analogies between unrelated things.

Ask yourself the following question:
What are the unknown aspects?
What do you know?
What data do you have?
What constraints and what rules apply?

Deferring Closure: You Know about a project at the end, then at the beginning. Often time we tend to commit to a date. Defer closure for as long as possible in order to make a better decision later

If you can't think of three ways a plan can go wrong or think of three different solutions to a problem, then you haven't thought it through enough.

Mastering knowledge alone, without experience, isn't effective.

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." - Yogi Berra

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits on a hot stove-lid; he will never sit on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also he will never sit on a cold one anymore." - Mark Twain

A random approach, without goals and feedback, tends to give random results

Unfortunately, relegating learning activities to your “free time” is a recipe for failure.

The expression “to make time
for” is a bit of a misnomer; time can’t be
created or destroyed. Time can only be allocated.

Solve a related or simpler problem; drop some con- straints or use a subset of the data

Try to think of a familiar problem having the same or similar unknowns.

it’s not important to get it right the first time, it’s important to get it right the last time

Fight the urge to rush to judgement or to a poten- tial fix prematurely. Be fully aware of how the system is behaving, and only then decide what part of that is “wrong” before moving on to devise a solution. In other words, don’t just do something, stand
there

Read the error message carefully. Raise your awareness. What’s happening?

don’t focus on correcting individual details, but just be aware. Accept what is first, and just be aware of it. Don’t judge, don’t rush in with a solution, don’t criticize.
You want to try and cultivate non-judgemental awareness: don’t try to get it right, but notice when it is wrong. Then act to correct it.

The Inner Game ideas focus on feedback to grow expertise. You are training, and then listening to, the inner voice of experience. But that only works if you can listen to the inner voice of experience. Listen, listen, listen. Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy, as we’ll see next.

Give yourself permission to fail, it’s the path to success

One major difference between knowledge investments and financial investments is that all knowledge investments have some value.

Mental preparation that involves an inward focus of attention can promote flashes of insight

Harness intuition and get better at recognizing and applying patterns

instead of issuing a stream of instructions to the student, the idea is to teach the student awareness, and to use that awareness to correct their performance. Awareness is an important tool in becoming more than a novice

Survey: Scan the table of contents and chapter summaries for an overview.

1. Learn to quiet your chattering L-mode
2. Deliberately work with and add to thoughts-in-progress, even if they aren’t “done” yet
3. Be aware of just how expensive a context-switch can be, and avoid it in all its myriad forms.

Not all mistakes arise from things you do; others come from things you didn’t do, that you should have. For example, you’re reading along and come across the word
rebarbative, or horked, and you wonder what on earth that means. Or perhaps you see a reference to a new technology you’ve never heard of, or a famous author in your field you’ve never read. Look them up. Google for it. Fill in the blanks. “I don’t know” is a fine answer, but don’t let it end there.

You can’t get anywhere without feedback. Did this experiment, or this invention work better than the alternatives? How do you know? Is the project progressing? Do more functions work this week than worked last week? Somehow, you need to demonstrate fine-grained progress—to yourself as well as to others.

Start with a plan.
Block out some time, and fight for it. Keep track of what you’ve accomplished, and review your accomplishments when you feel you haven’t done enough. You’ve probably come farther than you think. This is a great use of your exocortex: use a journal, or a wiki, or a web app to track your progress.

Inaction is the enemy, not error.
Remember the danger does not lie in doing something wrong, it lies in doing nothing at all. Don’t be afraid to make mis- takes.

New habits take time.
It takes something like a minimum of three weeks of perform- ing a new activity before it becomes habit. Maybe longer. Give it a fair chance.

Belief is real.
As we’ve seen throughout, your thoughts will physically alter the wiring in your brain and your brain chemistry. You have to believe that change is possible. If you think you’ll fail, you’ll be correct.

Take small, next steps.
Start with the low hanging fruit. Set up a small, achievable goal and reward yourself for reaching it. “Rinse and repeat”: set up the next small step. One step at a time, keeping your big goal in mind, but not trying to map out all the steps it takes to get there. Just the next one. Learn learn what you need to know for the goals farther out once you get closer to them.

Pick two things that will help you maintain context and avoid interruption, and start doing them right away.

Figure out where you are on the novice-to-expert spectrum in your chosen profession, and what you might need. Be hon- est. Do you need more recipes or more context? More rules or more intuition?

Practice. Having trouble with a piece of code? Write it five dif- ferent ways.

Plan on making more mistakes—mistakes are good. Learn from them.

Keep a notebook on you (unlined paper, preferably). Doodle. Mindmap. Take notes. Keep your thoughts loose and flowing.

Open up your mind to aesthetics and additional sensory input. Whether it’s your cubicle, your desktop or your code, pay attention to how “pleasing” it is

Start blogging. Comment on the books you’ve read.2 Read more books, and you’ll have more to write about. Use SQ3R and mindmaps.

Be aware of yourself; of the present moment; of the context in which you’re operating. I think the biggest reason that
any of us fail is that we have a tendency to put things on auto- pilot. Unless we sense some new and novel attribute, we zone out. Leonardo DaVinci complained about this six hundred years ago: “People look without seeing, hear without listening, eat without awareness of taste, touch without feeling and talk without think- ing.”

Start taking responsibility; don’t be afraid to ask “why?”, “how do you know”, “how do I know” or to answer “I don’t know— yet.”

-> How do you know?
-> Says who?
-> How specifically?
-> How does what I'm doing cause you to...?
-> Compared to what or whom?
-> Does it always happen?
-> Can you think of an exception?
-> What would happen if you did (or didn't)?
-> What stops you from...?
-> Is there anything you can actually measure?
-> Get hard numbers on?
-> Any statistics?

Chinese proverb: the palest ink is better than the best memory.

Pat Metheny: “Always be the worst guy in every band you're in. If you're the best guy there, you need to be in a different band. And I think that works for almost everything that's out there as well.”

People at lower skill levels tend to overestimate their own abilities - by as much as 50 percent.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obses- sive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

Even if you never use a particular
technology on the job, it will impact the way you think and solve problems. So anything you learn will have value, it just may not be direct, commercial, on-the-job value.

You can improve your performance—whether you’re playing a violin, debugging code, or designing a new architecture—by imagining that you’ve already done so successfully.

Practice may not make perfect, but it
sure makes permanent.