Why quantity should be at the centre of your revision strategy:
The following story is an excerpt from the book Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland:"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups.
All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: 50 pounds of pots rated an “A”, 40 pounds a “B”, and so on.
Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.
It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
"This is a key lesson all students need to learn- quantity leads to quality. Don't wait around for the perfect moment, the time when you are at 100%, to start your revision. Don't overthink it. Don't delay it. Put pen to paper and get on with it. Drop the perfectionist mentality. Those notes don't have to be perfect, they have to be done. If something is worth doing it is worth doing badly. Your revision strategy should be geared around maximizing practice, not perfection. "
Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good"- Malcolm Gladwell
As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome on the topic.
Like what you see, sign up to the email newsletter here, to get early and full access to these newsletters. [This email was originally sent out in the mailing list and is one of a selection from our newsletters.]
