Over the course of my life I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into the acquisition of different skills, abilities, competencies, specialized knowledge – for simplicity I will refer to all of it as “skills” in the following. Some of those skills, I would say, have even become an integral part of my identity, which isn’t unusual for a human, I guess. At my current age (sadly I’m not 17 anymore) I have accumulated a skill collection sizable enough that it needs to be managed systematically.

R-bloggers

A personal reflection on managing a large accumulated set of skills over time, covering how maintenance requires less effort than acquisition, how different skill types (memory-based, motor, language) need different maintenance strategies, how sub-skills within a broader skill deteriorate at different rates, and how deliberately neglected skills can often be relearned quickly. Includes anecdotes about music practice, language upkeep, and relearning the Colemak keyboard layout after switching back to QWERTY.

Notes on purposeful skill maintenance/improvement/neglect