Flow is the Opiate of the Mediocre

Note: I’m on vacation this week, so posting will be a little lighter than usual. I hope you’re having a great holiday week!

Cal Newport shares some advice from one of his readers on getting better:

Strategy #4: Create Beauty, Don’t Avoid Ugliness.
“Weak pianists make music a reactive task, not a creative task. They start, and react to their performance, fixing problems as they go along. Strong pianists, on the other hand, have an image of what a perfect performance should be like that includes all of the relevant senses. Before we sit down, we know what the piece needs to feel, sound, and even look like in excruciating detail. In performance, weak pianists try to reactively move away from mistakes, while strong pianists move towards a perfect mental image.”

Fascinating stuff. I’ve really come to love Cal’s website, Study Hacks.