The psychologist Anders Ericsson is famous for studying so-called “expert performers.” From decades of research into how these masters of games, craft, music, athletics and so on, Ericsson hypothesizes that the secret to their success is deliberate practice. I’ve written about deliberate practice obliquely before, as it has much in common with flow. The basic idea is that when learning a new skill, you can pick up the basics pretty quickly, but if you want to really see improvement, you need to be a bit more intentional and systematic about how you practice. For example, if you are taking piano lessons, you would do well to commit to a regimen of rehearsal. The results will be vastly different if your practice involves repeating an exercise or a tune for a set amount of time without regard to how well you do it as compared to if your goal with practicing was to be able to play your piece at the correct speed, three times in a row without a mistake. Ericsson refers to the former method as naïve practice and the latter as deliberate practice.