Skill Retention

For a lot of people, they are aware that in order to become proficient at something, they need both study and practice. As we get older, we pick up a lot of skills learned via this method. At a certain point though, some of our acquired skills start degrading. The dilemma then shifts from acquiring new skills to retaining the ones we already acquired.

The answer is obvious: practice. But the practical question is how do we find the time to practice in the context of our busy lives. And there is no universal solution that’s applicable to everyone. We must all come up with creative solutions to find our answer.

I have two examples. My upper body strength is awful, but my leg muscles have remained potent. This is because I walk to work every day and instead of taking the elevator to the 14th floor of our office, I take the stairs. Via this method, I do not need to go out of my way to exercise. It is simply part of my regular schedule.

My other example is writing. Before I started to journal, I seldom had reason to write anymore after I ceased blogging. Yet whenever I did write essays (like this one), it was (probably) better than what I had previously wrote, despite the absence of recently-published work. This was because I honed my writing elsewhere. I frequent Reddit and usually find myseslf in a position to answer questions. My comments are usually upvoted because they are articulated in a way that lay people can understand (as opposed to simply parroting answers that have already been stated elsewhere). Moreover, I learned how to make use of typographical elements and line breaks to improve both readability and visibility. The skills I apply in Reddit carries over to my writing and vice versa.

The challenge is finding similar methods to practice our other skills. And sometimes, there are no easy answers. For example, my already terrible piano skills have deteriorated. Nor have I found a way to practice my Chinese.

For older people like myself, the next challenge is finding ways to retain what we’ve previously learned. It’s a topic that’s seldom discussed but nonetheless critical to our personal development.