My Hour-Tally Routine

Another deliberate-practice routine was the introduction of my hour tally—a sheet of paper I mounted behind my desk at MIT, and plan on remounting at Georgetown. The sheet has a row for each month on which I keep a tally of the total number of hours I’ve spent that month in a state of deliberate practice. I started the tally sheet on March 15, 2011, and in the last two weeks of that month I experienced 12 hours of strain. In April, the first full month of this record keeping, I got the tally up to 42 hours. In May, I backslid to 26.5 hours and in June this fell to 23 hours. (In fairness, these last two months were a period during which I was up to my ears in the logistics of switching from my position at MIT to my position at Georgetown.) By having these hour counts stare me in the face every day I’m motivated to find new ways to fit more deliberate practice into my schedule. Without this routine, my total amount of time spent stretching my abilities would undoubtedly be much lower.