Post on August 3, 2026: Oh, horrors!  I'm about to use math! Don't worry, it's simple math.  Besides, math is fun once you see how it's relevant and meaningful to you. I'm going to talk about study and practice. "Practice makes perfect."  We all know that saying.  So the best way to learn is to practice all the time, right? Well, no. In 2002, I decided to start a webcomic called A Magical Roommate.  I loved art, and I was pretty good at still-lifes, but I was terrible at drawing anything without a reference.  I was particularly bad at people. One of my goals was to tell a great story that a lot of people would enjoy.  Another goal was to keep up the five-days-a-week update schedule until the story finished.  Another goal was to become a better artist. I succeeded in the first two! In all seriousness, I did get better at drawing in the course of working on my comic strip.  But it took a really, really long time. I thought improvement would happen just by drawing a lot, and it did.  But it happened at the speed of molasses in winter.  It hurt that everyone else who was spending as much time drawing as I was seemed to be improving ten times faster. I was doing everything right, wasn't I?  I was practicing like crazy!  What gives? Well, I've got a formula for you.  A very simple formula.  And one it took me a very long time to figure out. Study × Practice × Talent = Skill Let's take each of those things one at a time. Study involves listening to what people at a higher skill level say, watching the processes of what people at a higher skill level do, asking for honest critical evaluations, and constantly questioning whether you are doing things in the most effective way. It involves pondering and careful self-evaluation. It involves stepping outside of your comfort zone to try new things you don't understand well yet. It involves experiments, most of which will be failures. I have a friend who studies art a great deal and rarely practices it.  When she draws something, it's beautiful.  However, she can never draw the same thing twice.  It turns out differently every time, and she can never predict what it will look like at the end. That is the result of lots of study and almost no practice. Practice is the exact opposite of study.  It involves doing the same thing over and over and over and over again.  Very often the absolute basics: for musicians, it's playing or singing scales. Over time, habits form around the nuances that work best for you.  Eventually, those habits become so deeply ingrained that they're instinct, no longer conscious choices.  This is the reason why experts are often not very good at teaching beginners.  They can't even remember what the beginners need. Practice hones efficiency. Practice hones time management. Practice hones consistency. Practice hones control. Practice does not hone improvement. Do you want to be more reliable?  Practice. Do you want to get better?  Study. For eight years, I kept a dependable update schedule with character designs that were easy to recognize and remember.  I didn't get faster at drawing, and I didn't get much better at art. That is the result of lots of practice and almost no study. Now let's look at that formula, and plug in some numbers. Let's say you have 4 hours to spend on either study or practice.  What's the best way, long-term, to spend that time? Let's try all study. 4 hours of study × 0 hours of practice = 0 hours of skill gained Hmm, that doesn't seem very good.  No real progress to speak of.  Let's try all practice! 0 hours of study × 4 hours of practice = 0 hours of skill gained Sheesh, that seems just as bad.  How about a little bit of one and a lot of the other? 1 hour of study × 3 hours of practice = 3 hours of skill gained 3 hours of study × 1 hour of practice = 3 hours of skill gained Hey, that's pretty good!  But look, we can do better: 2 hours of study × 2 hours of practice = 4 hours of skill gained Do you see? If you want to improve, the most efficient way to spend your time is to divide it between equal amounts of study and practice. Now, there's one more variable to consider, and that's talent.  Talent is a multiplier, just like study and practice.  Unfortunately, it's a variable you have no control over. It's often useful to compare your study or practice with other people's.  You can learn a lot of great things that way. It's never useful to compare your talent with other people's.  You can't learn anything that way.  So resist the temptation to do it. Let's look at three hypothetical people with different talents. 100 hours of study × 100 hours of practice × 1 talent level = 1,000 hours of skill gained 100 hours of study × 100 hours of practice × 0.8 talent level = 800 hours of skill gained 100 hours of study × 100 hours of practice × 1.2 talent level = 1,200 hours of skill gained All three of these people are doing everything right, and working equally hard.  And there are three different results for their skill level. Is that right?  Is that fair? Probably not.  But that's life. I eventually realized that when it came to art, I had two multipliers holding me back.  I wasn't studying enough, which I could fix.  I have far less talent than an average person, which I couldn't. Does that mean I gave up when I figured that out? Heck no.  It just means that I have to expect it to take me longer to improve than your average person who is as serious about art as I am.  That's disappointing, and it's frustrating, but remember: frustration isn't always bad. Talent is a multiplier, not a result.  You can have a talent of 1,000 and do nothing with it.  You can have a talent of 0.001 and accomplish wonderful things. You can't always be smarter.  Intelligence is a talent.  But you can always be wiser.  Wisdom is a skill.

About the Author Hi!  I'm Emily Martha Sorensen!  I have a wonderful husband, seven kids who are often a handful, a madcap eccentric swarm of characters in my head, and I'm a devout Christian who always prioritizes loving God and loving my neighbor. I write fantasy and science fiction that is full of whimsy. I write clever characters who charge straight through my plot and spend it spinning wildly off the rails.  (Those brats.) I write magic systems with strict rules and surprising limitations. I write plot twists that will make your jaw drop. I write romance after the happily-ever-after.  That's where the relationship starts! I write darkness that exists only to help characters grow towards greater light. I write — Wait, where did those uncooperative protagonists put the plot this time?  They just ran off with it, cackling maniacally! Well, I hope they'll leave you grinning.

Can I write to you? Sure!  If you want to talk to me about something (which does not involve buying your marketing services), fill out this form, and I'll probably reply fairly soonish.  :)                       If you've enjoyed anything I've done, I'll be thrilled to hear from you!  I love hearing from people.  ^_^