- Tags:: [[Zettel]] [[Content Consumed]] [[Productivity]] [[Writing]] #[[Strength Finder Theme: Communication]] #[[sources/Article/Mine/Linguistic Privilege]] [[Polyglottery]] - Date Created: [[2020-09-01]] - Source: [[sources/Book/How to Take Smart Notes]] - Related Zettel:: - [[Creativity isn't about coming up with entirely new ideas; it's about seeing connections between existing ideas or using them for a new purpose.]] - [[Slow Burn vs Heavy Lift: Gradually collecting ideas over time and then tying them together is easier than starting from nothing.]] - Attention directs intention. Things that we pay attention to are things we end up attracting by virtue of our thoughts and deeds. - We can't produce anything insightful without also reading insightful content. I am reminded of a friend I had who wrote a book. I was impressed... until I read the book. It was filled with very basic spelling and grammatical mistakes, enough that I could not finish it. As I tried my best to be diplomatic and sensitive when he asked me for my opinion, he mentioned that he didn't read books. And everything made sense. - Reading is an essential part of writing. Creating in a vacuum is possible, but creating __quality__ content in a vacuum is not. There are no new ideas; just new applications and connections-- and reading is a way to get those ideas. Writing without reading is like sentencing yourself to start from nothing instead of picking up where others have left off. - This is also a call to pay be intentional about the __kinds__ of content we consume. Trash begets trash. It's okay to have some guilty pleasures, but if we never read content that challenges us, how do we expect to challenge others in our own work? - Sometimes, it can be too easy to focus on the creative process and to think of it as something internal, but in fact it is helpful to look outside ourselves and tune in to the collective Zeitgeist of the influencers in your field. Learn from their work and your own work will be better because of it. - "We become an expert in what we deliberately practice." - ""`Deliberate practice is the only serious way of becoming better at what we are doing (cf. Anders Ericsson, 2008).`"" - ""`Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, researchers on expertise, have a simple explanation: Teachers tend to mistake the ability to follow (their) rules with the ability to make the right choices in real situations.`"" - ""`Because trainees lack the experience to judge a situation correctly and confidently, they need to stick to the rules they were taught, much to the delight of their teachers. According to the Dreyfuses, the correct application of teachable rules enables you to become a competent “performer” (which corresponds to a “3” on their five-grade expert scale), but it won’t make you a “master” (level 4) and certainly won’t turn you into an “expert” (level 5).`"" - ""`But like in professional chess, the intuition of professional academic and nonfiction writing can also only be gained by systematic exposure to feedback loops and experience,`"" - "`We don’t need to worry about the question of what to write about because we have answered the question already – many times on a daily basis. Every time we read something, we make a decision on what is worth writing down and what is not.`"