We can do 1,000 things at once. But we can only focus on 1.

I find myself telling parents and students this often.

Yes, we can walk, chew gum, and hold a conversation at the same time. But when we were learning each of those skills we had to give it our full effort. It is only after extensive practice that we have the chance to do all of them at the same time.

In the lesson and at home in practice we are being selective and essentially ignoring almost everything so that we can actively change just one thing. Those other skills will go on in the background. Just like how we can continue to breathe or stand without thinking about it. But we won’t ever try to change multiple things at once.

Frustration arises in practice not because we aren’t doing enough, but because we are trying to do to much.

Simply ask yourself this question. “What problem are we solving?”

If you don’t know, then don’t move forward.
If you listed more than one problem, you’re trying to do too much.

Get selective. Make one transformational, lasting change at a time. And slowly, ever so slowly, stack those skills.

The most important ingredient for learning is not effort, it is time. Students know how to work hard, but few have the patience to work slow. When we go slow and work on one thing at a time we have the opportunity to stack 1,000 real skills on top of each other.

“Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”