Lone Wolf 5/11 - Throwing Stones
ROUND: 5
Forfeit.
No LoneWolf game for me this week. I had to forfeit the round due to (paid) work craziness. Very frustrating, but things should be back to normal for round 6.
So let’s talk about throwing stones. As in you make a change in your life - start getting serious about your chess improvement as an adult, for example - and over time the impact ripples outwards.
Like tossing a pebble into a pond.
So I start getting interested in chess training.
Which leads to listening to podcasts like Perpetual Chess and the Chess Pit.
And also leads to books like Peak Performance and the Passion Paradox by Stuhlberg and Magness.
Which leads to their podcast.
Both of which leads to other podcasts that aren’t chess related at all.
Yesterday I mentioned Against the Rules. Another one I like to listen to is Cal Newport’s Deep Questions.
And that's how, a year or so after I decided it was about time I gave proper chess training a go, I’ve become a person who listens to podcasts.
Haha.....the cycle is complete in a deliciously ironic way. Looking at this more broadly, to create consistency and habit, I think its important to have broad selection of activities that help your chess improvement in different ways. That way, you have enough variety to maintain motivation and work on a range of different things at the same time. In that vein, I have found it helpful to take a leaf out of Eisenhower's approach (urgent vs. important) and split your chess activities into those that are "directly" vs "indirectly beneficial (like solving chess tactics puzzles vs solving chess studies or listening to relevant podcasts) against those that are chess-related vs general performance-related (like playing regular classical time-control games vs memory improvement exercises). You can create a matrix with quadrants and list all of your activities in your chess improvement plan making sure you have a sprinkling across each area. This approach has helped me plan my training schedule more clearly. Anyway, great blog, very thought-proving.
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