When Less is More

We do more in hope of achieving more.

Little do we know, doing more does not always make us to achieve more. On the contrary, less is more.

This might be counterintuitive. After going through fanatic experience of doing more and more without achieving more, I paused and reflected on what I did. Later on, a thought clicked with me so I changed my way of thinking completely from then on.

Last week, I noticed my progress on English pronunciation stagnated. I could no longer make breakthrough. At that moment, I lost all the motivations I used to have to carry on this daily routine of mine. “All is a waste of time!” I said to myself.

After calming down, I figured out what caused this stagnation. The reason was because I focused on speed too much while overlooking the importance of pronouncing individual words correctly. So I played some of the previous recordings I made during my morning practice, and noticed there were words that I seemed to have trouble pronounce clearly or properly. Then, I realized that I have been rushing through my practice everyday without noticing these problematic areas, such as weak vowels and wrong emphasize on syllables. It turned out that I’ve been repeating the wrong thing over and over. In addition, all the exercises I did were mostly in the same format, in which I really should have changed things around.

For those who didn’t get what I said about my ‘morning routine, I was talking about my habit of reading articles aloud and mimicking TED Talks. They usually take about 1 hour to complete. Think about it: an-hour long is quite a long time for daily practice. If an exercise is done correctly, the 1-hour per day is a great opportunity to make improvement on a skill. On the flip side, if the same exercise is done incorrectly, an hour everyday is strong enough to stagnate or impede one’s improvement on this skill.

Beside English pronunciation practice, rushing through the “doing part” without putting the mind into thinking is like repeating the motion without making improvement. Reparative motions are not mindful practices, and such is a waste of time (or a waste of life). Instead, pay attention to your problematic or challenging areas. Knowing what you have trouble performing well helps you under your weaknesses. Then, targeting on these weaknesses: practice and repeat. Such is called mindful practice, and that’s how one could make improvement on any skills.

Having daily routine is nothing wrong. However, you should first ask yourself what’s the purpose for keeping it? Are you doing the right practice? Also, ask yourself if the exercises in your daily routine are appropriate for your current skill level: are they too difficult or too easy for you to make an improvement? If they are either too hard or too simple, consider change things around.

Regarding routines, two things you definitely don’t want:

1. Repeat the wrong things over and over or practice in an incorrect way

2. Target level is either too high or way below your current skill level

How does “Less is More” work?

Here was what I did: instead of rushing through the ‘doing part”, I slow down and emphasize on each vowel and consonants to make sure they were pronounced clearly and correctly. Then, I played the recordings back to myself over and over to hear any errors I made during the practice. When mistakes were found, I corrected them, memorized them, and practice again.

When the following three things below, You will achieve more with doing less.

1. Attention to detail

Draw on small things. They are elements that make a difference in a big picture.

Tiny twist on vowels and consonances can cause drastic difference on how you sound in English. Paying attention to these tiny twists help ESLs to correct English pronunciation as well as to reduce their accents.

2. Review and Correct

There is no point repeating your mistake over and over. If you don’t know what you’ve been doing wrong, time would be well spent if you review the practice and correct the part you had trouble with.

3. One thing at a time

Working on too many things at once distracts you from staying focused. Also, I would slow down your progress and improvement on one skill. After getting better at one thing, you can then shift you full attention onto the next goal.

Practice is about quality, not quantity. Less is more when focusing your attention on detail, working on your problematic areas, and giving yourself enough time to get better at one thing at one time.

Life is not a race. Take all the time ^_^