Peak Timing: 3 Key Times For Deliberate Practice and One To Avoid At All Costs

Skill development and the practice that leads to mastery sometimes has to get done as it needs to get done but there are specific times throughout the day when we want to prioritize certain types of deliberate practice.

When we can make this timing work, our mind and body are more in sync to give us the energy we need to perform optimally.

While grit may help us to push through times when we’re at our worst, that is not an optimal nor ideal state to operate from all of the time. We should understand our chronotype and optimize our schedule as best as possible when the goal of mastering something is the priority.

Previously I talked about the distinction between focus time and flow time and how doing the one thing your vision is set on is not always the same time of day in which getting into flow is optimal.

Let’s now get into the optimal timing of when should we do the deliberate practice of mastery.

As we’ve seen, deliberate practice is often gritty. It’s not a flow state where the effort feels effortless.

Cal Newport was recently on Huberman’s podcast talking about Deep Work and his new book Slow Productivity. In the conversation, they discussed deliberate practice at length and directly compared it to how it is not the same as flow.

I want to explore this point of contention further when we transition to the pillar of Flow in the High Flow Lifestyle but for now, we’re still working to build up the skills and practice that will help to facilitate the flow state in the activities we want it the most.

Knowing that deliberate practice often requires us to be gritty and push through discomfort, the best time to do deliberate practice is whenever you can make it work in your schedule.

The second best time to do deliberate practice is based on what is optimal for your chronotype and the activity in question.

We can only affect what’s in our control and often competing priorities will mean that the thing you’re passionate about advancing the skill of comes after your other responsibilities.

Workout Timing

Not all deliberate practice is physical but physical mastery has been studied much more extensively than knowledge work has which is why it’s useful to pull from this world when making informed decisions about when to practice regardless of what it is you are doing.