Learning how to play piano follows a certain progression:
- Learn the notes.
- Learn and practice playing the scales with one hand.
- Learn and practice playing chords with one hand.
- Learn how to play small, simple songs with one hand.
- Learn how to play scales and chords with 2 hands.
- Learn how to play songs that require 2 hands.
- Learn how to play bigger pieces.
It’s the various skills you learn along the way, that, with practice, allow you to take on bigger pieces.
The foundation for all of it is scales and chords. If you practice these with consistency, in correct form, and with good technique, you can play anything.
When I learned how to play as a child, once I worked my way up to playing bigger pieces, I’d practice them in chunks, getting each section fluent before I tried to combine it with the next section.
If I got stuck or made a mistake, I’d go back over that measure or group of measures repeatedly until I had smoothed it out.
The Pattern: Mastering Component Skills
The process is a pattern that applies to mastering any complex skill.
In weightlifting, good fundamentals pave the way for lifting heavier. Before you put a barbell on your back, it’s important to master the bodyweight squat and dumbbell squats. Breaking down Olympic lifts into their component pieces and drilling each movement within the bigger movement helps put them together.
In flying trapeze and trampoline, all advanced tricks build on the fundamentals. A lousy takeoff will lead to a lousy swing, which won’t set you up for a bigger trick.
In yoga, the first skill to master is stability in the feet and the hinge at the hips. That gives you a good forward fold and a good downward dog. All other poses are merely variants of those basics.
Bad technique with fundamentals will eventually show through and hinder your progress.
This pattern applies to anything else we want to do or create. And it’s the basis for an approach I’ve long taken to breaking down projects.
A Different Approach to Planning Projects
The standard productivity advice to planning projects is to break down projects into the specific action steps. The vast majority of “task management” systems follow this structure:
Distilling a project into its component actions is often a sticking point for me and other neurodivergent people.
- Projects often have a lot of actions, which leads to overwhelm.
- There’s often no obvious hierarchy or prioritization built in, which creates the need for more decisions, exhausting limited executive function bandwidth.
- Not all actions are necessary, and doing all of them can lead to burnout.
A Reframe: What Skills Are Required?
For any project that will be repeating, I find it helpful to consider it in terms of the skills required.
If I can break a project down into its component skills, I can practice those skills until I get fluent with them.
Then, I can combine the skills together to create the result I want.
As you look at your project list, consider what skills you need to execute those projects. Then practice those skills. Skills will take you farther than actions.
If you are fluent in your scales, you can play all different types of music.
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