In school, sports, and the workplace our time is often split between performing and practicing:

The test, the game, and the presentation = performance
The things we do to prepare for the performance = practice

(obviously these aren’t the only two slices of the pie chart)

More times than not, the performance matters and we want it to go well. A great way to help that happen is to improve the way we practice.

Over the last 8 years I’ve had the honor of spending time with some brilliant researchers in the learning world: Anders Ericsson, Robert & Elizabeth Bjork, and Richard Schmidt. Their work points to a more effective way to practice, study, and prepare.

If we want to perform better, we need to practice better. Here are three tools to help us do that: