Meta Skills - Practice it like your life depends on it

I have spoken about playing the game Lumosity before. It helps you develop verbal, spatial, and memory skills.

I discovered something fascinating about myself. My verbal skills were outstanding. My memory and spatial not so much.

I was scoring 100% on any level of difficulty in the verbal section. For context, the questions included words I had never heard of. But I could guess the answer and still score a 100%.

My performance was inconsistent with all the other tests.

Which led me to ask - why?

In one word, consistent practice. I have written at least 3500 articles and a book. Millions of words. Practice pays.

As far as memory is concerned, I had outstanding memory. In college, I memorized the entire Indian Economics book and every table within. Some 500 pages’ worth.

But now, my memory was failing.

I couldn’t remember the name or number of the last card flashed on the screen. I had lost practice.

This is an example where N=1. It is just one persons truth. I would argue, though, that this is true for everyone. The more you do something, the better you get at it.

Given time is so precious and most of us seem not to have any at all, how should you allocate your time to hone your skills?

I recently read an article that spoke about a concept known as meta skills.

Skills that help many other skills develop.

Illustratively being able to move and communicate. Movement allows you to hunt, cook and dance. Communication allows you to be a poet and a politician.

They are meta skills.

So perhaps you could ask yourself - what meta skills do you want to develop? What are the skills that will allow you to make best use of the time you have been given.

How can you then engage in consistent deliberate practice so that you get really good at your meta skills.

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