奇创岛

From «Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise»

Complete a 90-Day Deliberate Practice Plan

You'll pick one skill you most want to improve in the near term and design an actionable 90-day practice roadmap using the core elements of deliberate practice (purposeful goals / stepping outside your comfort zone / immediate feedback / mental representation anchors), including specific weekly training tasks and feedback-collection methods.

Final work

A 'My 90-Day Deliberate Practice Plan' document

Estimated time

60–90 min

Submitted

…

Your final work

Purpose:Apply Ericsson's four elements of *purposeful practice* to a real skill of your own, and design a 90-day, quantifiable training roadmap with built-in feedback mechanisms — so that progress is visible, tangible, and reviewable.

Parts:

  • Skill status diagnosis (current level + bottleneck identification)
  • Quantifiable 90-day goal (baseline value → target value + verification criteria)
  • Three-phase training plan (Days 1–30 / 31–60 / 61–90, with core tasks and comfort-zone challenges for each phase)
  • Weekly feedback loop (weekly training tasks + feedback-collection method + adjustment trigger conditions)
  • Mental representation anchor (reference benchmark / expert standard / comparison-and-check method)
  • Coaching substitute plan (how to get external feedback without a professional coach)
  • Phase-gate milestone check-ins (Day 30 / Day 60 / Day 90)

Use cases:

  • · Use it for personal skill-improvement self-tracking
  • · Use it to explain to others what you're seriously practicing and how
  • · Use it to look back after 90 days, measure progress, and draft your next round

Pick a topic

Pick the topic closest to you, or write a custom one when you submit.

Personal Life

Learning / Growth

Work / Projects

Tools you'll use from the book

Purposeful Practice Template

Ericsson's four elements of purposeful practice: specific goals / full concentration / immediate feedback / stepping outside your comfort zone.

How to use it here:

Use the four elements to check each weekly training task you've designed: Is the goal specific and measurable? Are you fully concentrated throughout the practice? Does feedback arrive within 24 hours of finishing? Is the task difficulty slightly challenging without being overwhelming?

Boundaries:

'Purposeful practice' is not the same as *deliberate practice* — the latter also requires an established training system in the domain. Without a domain training system, purposeful practice is still far better than naive repetition, but it's worth acknowledging it's not the most efficient form.

Feedback Loop Design

Practice must include immediate feedback to calibrate direction; otherwise the brain has no way to know what went wrong.

How to use it here:

Assign one concrete feedback source to each training task: audio/video playback, comparison with an expert, peer evaluation, or quantitative metric tracking (e.g., typing speed improved from 40 to 55 words/min). Be explicit about 'how I'll know whether this practice session was effective.'

Boundaries:

Feedback must target specific behaviors, not general feelings ('felt like a good practice session' doesn't count as feedback). Feedback is not criticism — it's data that helps you calibrate your mental representation. Don't treat negative feedback as a personal rejection.

Phase Goal Breakdown

90 days is a training cycle that needs to be broken into three phases: build foundation / break through bottleneck / consolidate gains.

How to use it here:

Split 90 days into three 30-day blocks, each with different core tasks and measurable milestones. Days 1–30: establish a baseline and identify your weakest link. Days 31–60: intensively strengthen the weakest link and push beyond your comfort zone. Days 61–90: integrate and output, then verify whether your mental representation has truly been built.

Boundaries:

Don't 'attack everything at once' across all phases — Ericsson repeatedly emphasizes 'identify the weakest link and concentrate your practice there,' rather than distributing practice time evenly. If all three phases share the same focus, your breakdown is superficial.

Mental Representation Comparison Check

A mental representation is the internalized model an expert has for 'knowing what good work looks like' — used to identify and correct one's own errors.

How to use it here:

In your plan, clearly identify 'who or what is my benchmark': find 1–2 real reference points that are one step above you (not far beyond), specific enough that you can say 'what I produce in 30 days should look roughly like this,' and build in regular comparison check-ins (e.g., every two weeks re-listen to the benchmark and compare it with your own recording).

Boundaries:

Choose a benchmark that is 'exactly one step ahead,' not an unreachable world-class master — the latter makes it impossible to sense the gap and calibrate your practice direction.

Coaching Substitute Plan

When a professional coach is unavailable, use 'external-perspective substitutes' to fill the feedback blind spots.

How to use it here:

List your no-coach feedback alternatives for each phase: audio/video self-review with a checklist (presentations), regular tests compared against answer keys (language learning), asking a friend who's stronger in the skill to do a monthly review (writing/coding), joining a study group for mutual diagnosis (general purpose).

Boundaries:

Self-feedback has a built-in limitation — you're too familiar with your own blind spots. You must periodically introduce an external perspective. If you go three months with zero external feedback, the effectiveness of your plan will be significantly diminished.

Work rules

Your work MUST include

  • One specific, concrete skill (not vague targets like 'learning ability' or 'overall quality')
  • A quantifiable baseline and 90-day target (e.g., 'current spoken English speed is 60 words/min; target is 90 words/min')
  • A three-phase training plan (Days 1–30 / 31–60 / 61–90) with distinct core tasks per phase
  • At least one concrete feedback source per phase (recordings, comparisons, peer evaluation, or quantitative metrics)
  • A mental representation reference — one benchmark that is one step above your current level
  • Three phase-gate milestone criteria (how you'll judge success at Day 30, 60, and 90)

Your work CANNOT just be

  • Don't write unstructured plans like 'practice one hour every day'
  • Don't split 90 days into three identical segments (no phase differentiation)
  • Don't omit a feedback mechanism (no design for 'how do I know whether I'm improving')
  • Don't set unquantifiable goals (e.g., 'get better' or 'improve somewhat' — neither is verifiable)
  • Don't submit an AI-generated generic plan as-is; it must reflect your real current situation

AI can help you here

Round 1: Help me choose a topic and diagnose my current situation

When to use: You're not sure which skill to plan for, or you don't know where your current bottleneck is.

I'm working on the '{{route name}}' project using *{{book title}}*. I want to design a 90-day deliberate practice plan, but I'm not sure which skill to focus on, or how to diagnose my current-state bottlenecks.

Based on my situation, please help me choose the most suitable topic from the list below and run a current-state diagnosis.

My situation:
[Fill in: what skill you're currently practicing (or want to practice), roughly what level you're at, where you feel stuck, and what state you'd like to reach in 90 days]

Available topics:
[Paste the topic list from the page]

Please output:
1. Your top recommended topic and why it fits me
2. Based on my described situation, what is my most likely core bottleneck (diagnose using the four elements of purposeful practice)
3. Three key questions I should answer before designing my 90-day plan
4. What the final work for this route looks like

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Round 2: Help me design a three-phase training framework

When to use: You've confirmed the skill and topic, but don't know how to break 90 days into three differentiated phases, or how to design a feedback mechanism.

The project I've chosen is the '{{route name}}' route from *{{book title}}*.

My topic is: {{topic}}

My current situation:
[Fill in: skill name, current baseline level, most obvious bottleneck, 90-day goal]

Please help me design a three-phase 90-day training framework based on Ericsson's four elements of purposeful practice (specific goals / full concentration / immediate feedback / stepping outside your comfort zone).

Requirements:
1. The core tasks for each of the three phases must be different (not just 'practice X hours per day')
2. Each phase must have one concrete feedback method (not 'how I feel')
3. Clearly specify the 'comfort zone challenge' task for each phase
4. Suggest a mental representation benchmark suitable for my level
5. If I don't have a professional coach, provide a coaching substitute plan

Please output:
- Days 1–30: core task + feedback method + comfort zone challenge
- Days 31–60: core task + feedback method + comfort zone challenge
- Days 61–90: core task + feedback method + comfort zone challenge
- Mental representation benchmark suggestion (a specific reference + comparison method)
- Coaching substitute plan (one per phase)
- Three phase-gate milestone criteria (Day 30 / Day 60 / Day 90)

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Round 3: Help me check whether my plan meets deliberate practice standards

When to use: You've written a draft plan and want to verify it truly meets the requirements of purposeful practice before submitting.

I'm about to submit my work for a Shufang Island project.

Book: *{{book title}}*
Project route: {{route name}}
My topic: {{topic}}

My 90-day deliberate practice plan draft:
{{draft work}}

Please review my plan using Ericsson's four elements of purposeful practice:

1. Specific goals: Are the goals concrete and measurable? Are the 'sub-goals' for each training task clear?
2. Full concentration: Does the practice design require focused execution (rather than 'naive practice' like exercising while scrolling your phone)?
3. Immediate feedback: Is the feedback mechanism for each phase specific and actionable (not just 'how I feel')?
4. Stepping outside comfort zone: Do all three phases include tasks that feel slightly challenging (rather than pure repetition)?
5. Mental representation: Is there a concrete benchmark + comparison-and-check method?
6. Executability: Can the plan be sustained in daily life (not only on weekends)?

Please output:
- Overall evaluation (is this a *purposeful practice plan* or a *naive practice plan*?)
- Rating for each of the four elements (strong / medium / weak) with specific explanation
- Issues that must be fixed (gaps that would make the plan ineffective)
- Areas that could be strengthened
- Suggested revised plan structure

Yellow placeholders need you to fill in before using the AI.

AI can help you organize ideas, but cannot make final judgments for you. Don't let AI fabricate experiences, cases, or misleading content.

Submit my work