To maximise practice time is to maximise error rates

One way to measure the effectiveness of a Deliberate practice is to measure error rates.

When I observed my daughter practicing for a Grade 1 Piano exam for 20 minutes, I asked her how many errors she'd made. She would tell me, for the entire sessions, she made 10 errors. If you calculate the error rate based in this data, the error rate is 0.5 errors/min.

Given that she's repeating the whole song each time, this error rate can be increased by Decomposition. Rather than practising for the whole song, I pin down where she's making the error, and get her to repeat the particular spot (bars) she's making the errors. Repeating the error spots over and over again, she'll increase the error rate to 20 errors/min.

When I tried to improve my badminton practice, I realise some of my drills error rates are reduced. To give one example, I can feel that my clear drills are getting more and more consistent, my error rates are too low. I started to adjust my drills to incorporate a proper footwork (rather than just standing still), I realise my error rates are increasing again.

Some may associate errors to be something bad, so I assume:

• To be antifragile is to love mistakes
• Have Autotelic personality
• Have Growth mindset

Backlinks

• Measuring error rates may reduce performance
  • To maximise practice time is to maximise error rates. But, unfortunately, carrying this habit from practice into perform (Practice-Perform duality) might be detrimental, given that it may induce frustration in a high-stake environment, forming a vicious cycle: