#4 Intensity and Frequency

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I had read an article by James Clear recently in which he explains the importance of frequently doing something while building a new skill. We often misunderstand intensity with frequency and that is a big mistake we make. James Clear makes this point clear by telling a story about a photography contest.

The contestants in the contest were split into two groups. The first group was told to take only 5 perfect photos at the end of the month and the second group was told to take as many photos as they can in one month and submit 5 five of the best photos that they had taken.

Everyone expected that the group which was told to take only perfect photos was the group going to produce more good photos, but the result was exactly the opposite. When the list of the best photos was made, the most majority of the photos chosen were from the second group and most of the contestants in the second group performed relatively better as compared with the contestants of the first group.

Whenever we decide to work on learning a new skill, we often think that we need to perform at our best level, we need to be perfect and we need to work with intensity to learn things better and faster. This is true to some degree but not overall. When the first group set out to take photos, they had a number in their mind and they were more focused on taking a few perfect photos and some of them did take good photos but most of them did not perform well. But the second group did not have a number in their mind and they were not concerned about taking perfect photos. As a result, they took more photos and each time they clicked a picture, they could see where the flaws were and with each click they made, they improved their skill. And that led them to take better and better pictures which, at the end of the month, produced some great photos and they were all more skilled than when they started out.

So the lesson here is that when you set out to learn something new or learn a new skill, do not be bothered about being perfect. That will not do any good in improving your skills. Rather, what you should be doing is that you should do things as frequently as possible with timely pause and reflect. Practice as much as you can and when you do that, you will naturally get good at doing that and you will improve far better than when you do otherwise.


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