年紀漸近中年的我，看這本書特別有感受，小時候對工作常常會有一些天馬行空的幻想，比如說覺得比爾蓋茲、賈伯斯輟學創業很厲害，實際上百分之99的人都是平凡人，職涯不會只有不斷往上爬，遇到中年失業會開始漸漸往下掉，如果是整天埋首在工作，下班後還有家人小孩要照顧的人，可能一時之間會不知道如何應對。
作者用3句話來總結：
享受物質的一切，愛你周遭的朋友，敬畏那神秘的力量
資本是努力辛苦得來的，拿來消費享受犒賞沒太大問題，但不要過度用獲取多少金錢、權力、容貌來定義自己， 那是追逐物質世界的成功，把自己當造物者看待，若沒有做好準備，年輕時爬得越高，在不知不覺經歷過人生高峰後，搞不好讓你跌得越重，提早為人生第2階段做好準備。適度展現出你的弱點，而不是隱藏它，當用你的缺點去跟別人做連結，你會發現愛在你的人生中開始成長了。
另外此書主要是用心態、概念的角度告訴讀者如何重啟新的人生，實際上工作要如何做調整、如何面對AI取代人類的挑戰，就不是本書的重點，建議大家可以去翻閱其它書籍。
總而言之，如果對自己的生涯有些疑惑的可以閱讀此書
“Practice Perfect,” as the title hinted, is a how-to method book. I really enjoyed it and highlighted many notes. However, it couldn’t be half-long. The book chapters are not well-organized. Lemov, the author, breaks the core concepts(rethinking of practice, how to practice, using modeling, feedback, culture of practice and post-practice) into smaller and repetitious portions so that I could not connect every chapter in a straight way.
Rethink practice and isolate your skills:
Practicing in a hustle and bustle environment sometimes distracts me from recognizing I’m learning in the wrong way. So I participate in the learning workshops or study groups for getting feedback from the other members. I could re-examine what skills to be sharpened through rethinking. Then I break the difficult paths for isolated skill development.
Bright spot:
Focus on your strength. Improving your weakness is a waste of time.
In the past, I tried to learn different domain knowledge and skills for the sake of proving myself. However, these skills didn’t turn out to be a competitive work advantage. As a knowledge worker, you must make effective contributions to your cooperation.
However, honing my weakness only makes me a mediocre worker. Why do I spend more energy on my strength?
Shorten the feedback loop:
Implementing a small and easy change right away can be more effective than a complex rewiring a skill. So I usually try to post my thoughts on my Facebook after reading.
Replace your purpose with an object:
I love to make a New Year’s resolution to improve myself over the next months. Unfortunately, after only a few short weeks, most of them failed. By writing a reflective journal, I know it’s not realistic. So I adjust my goals to make them specific and measurable. For example, I want to speed up my writing, so I use Excel to record my word count every day.
Tell a story like a script director. Present a slide like a designer.
The author, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, uses simple examples and explains to every reader about how to communicate to audience using data.
You could implement these concepts by hand. Learning how to use PowerPoint well doesn’t mean you could give an excellent presentation to the audience. You must display your idea like a well-trained designer and tell a story like a Hollywood script director.
So, the author borrows some professional elements from design and script-writing such as affordance, acceptance and storyboarding. In the chapter of “case studies”, the author demonstrates how she would fix the not-so-good graphs by the concepts covering in this book.
Telling an emotional or persuasive story using data is a hard work. If we don’t consciously recognize that this takes time to do well. We run the risk of losing the potential opportunity to drive change and action.
This is the final step the audience will see. We should devote our time to storytelling with data.
