CF Dictionary A reference for Critical Fallibilism

CF Dictionary · Practice & Mastery

Deliberate Practice

Practice aimed at improving specific weak areas, with feedback. CF adopts this as the standard for serious learning.

Deliberate practice is practice aimed at specific weak areas, with feedback. It's the standard CF adopts for serious skill-building.

Why deliberate

  • Mindless practice plateaus. Doing the same thing doesn't improve.
  • Targeted practice moves the needle. Fix the bottleneck.
  • Feedback is essential. Without it, you're guessing.

Components

  1. Specific goal. What sub-skill am I improving?
  2. Focused attention. No multitasking.
  3. Immediate feedback. Did I get it right?
  4. Iteration. Repeat with refinement.
  5. Within ability: Challenging but not impossible.

CF's adoption

CF treats deliberate practice as the core of mastery:

  • Identify weak sub-skills. Where do errors cluster?
  • Design practice. Drill those sub-skills.
  • Track improvement. Pass/fail metrics.
  • Avoid perfectionism.: Some error is fine.
  • Cycle. Deliberate practice → measure → adjust.

Anti-patterns

  • Practising what you're already good at. Ego practice.
  • No measurement. "I practised for 3 hours" without knowing if you improved.
  • Too easy. No challenge, no growth.
  • Too hard. overreach — errors accumulate.
  • Practising without thinking. Autopilot, no improvement.

The CF-specific twist

CF notes that thinking itself can be deliberately practised. Practice Thinking in Terms of Error Correction gives examples: watching a video, identifying the goal, identifying errors, identifying the fix.

"Intentional, Focused Practice" is a CF essay title. — criticalfallibilism.com