The wisdom of ages.

One of the areas that I have found most difficult over my life has been making a consistent effort at fulfilling whatever my goals at a particular period may be. I have been good for a spurt of effort, particularly at deadlines, but prone to dropping off tasks if they become too challenging or require too much work over a consistent period of time to be achieved.

This trait has caused me problems both personally and professionally as I regularly find myself behind whatever timetable I need to be following. This can be highly stressful and where possible, my favourite response to stress is to eliminate it!

During November last year it occurred to me that the fact my tutoring numbers hadn't reached the level I want was reflecting problems that were going to need more than just a few days work to rectify. I analysed how my business was meeting the expectations that I have of a tutoring business, its organisation, structure, administration, presentation and the overall quality of the service that I was providing.

While there were many good things about that service, it was obvious that the answer to the question "Are you doing the best you can do with this business?" was no. Tutoring's a competitive business and that answer reflected an approach where the pursuit of excellence hadn't been the number one priority. I had developed a business that was, in practice, aiming to be 'good enough'. Unfortunately, good enough isn't always good enough.

My characteristic response was to create a list detailing the tasks that needed to be completed in order to raise my business to a standard that I could be proud of.  I am a past master of creating detailed, well structured lists of tasks that need to be done so that I can achieve a series of personal goals. The lists just don't get completed. With around 50 items, most of them outlining lengthy tasks, this list was particularly long and seemed no more likely to be achieved than any of its predecessors.

Nevertheless, it was completed and I commenced work. While I hadn't formalised an order of priority in formulating the list, there was definitely one in my head. As per usual, the first few days were good, making a well structured list is empowering and generates a burst of enthusiasm in the same way the New Year gets us off to a strong start in terms of fulfilling personal goals.

Historically, a good day for me has been the precursor for a disaster as I get satisfied with myself, think that I'm doing well so I relax, do nothing productive the next day and drift back to the spiral of time wasting, feeling guilty about time wasting, doing less and less because of that guilt and eventually giving up on the project. This time I have been reviewing each night what I have achieved that day, asking myself what I seek to achieve the following day. If I'm stuck for inspiration, I look at the list, which gets added to as relevant items occur to me. It's approaching 70 items now.

Initially, I had to be very tough on myself, guarding against the idea that I was getting somewhere significant and constantly re-iterating that my performances today were what mattered, not yesterday and not tomorrow. I can live quite happily in visions of a future that will never be achieved!

As this has gone on I've noticed those thoughts coming readily to my head, and the process of reviewing the day's achievements and mentally planning for tomorrow occurring naturally, instead of needing to be forced. Similarly, I'm finding that leisure breaks are becoming just that, that there's an actual desire to get back to the main game. This is virtually unprecedented for me. Today I told Kristy I wouldn't be doing much today but I actually am because I have habituated the process.

THE list is by no means completed and I anticipate that there it will take me months to tick off the items currently on it but many items have been completed and completed to a standard that I am proud of.

What's struck me most about the change is that I am internalising the wisdom of Will Durant, summarising the approaches of Aristotle;

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." 

The wisdom of ages.

Improving at chess.

There are three areas where I've tried to improve myself this year: Maths, writing and chess. I've written about my efforts to improve in Maths here  but I haven't discussed my efforts to become a better chessplayer.

I first purchased a PC and connected to the Internet back in January 1997, by July 1997 I had signed up to play at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) and I remain a member today. As I will elaborate upon down the track, the ICC became the focus of my online existence for many years and I was one serious ICC addict. In my early years, my chess improved quite a bit as I purchased some books, played a lot of games online and played a few over the board (OTB) tournaments and got better. However, my major focus was the social activity on ICC and not the game itself.

In recent years, the exhilarating array of social contacts that characterised my first decade on ICC has faded, many people I knew then have moved on and with the rise of social networking, ICC is no longer a place which people use to fulfil their social needs online. It's become rather staid and boring. It's still a good place to play the game. I still found myself playing chess, but it was the same fast chess games I'd been playing for fun when ICC was at its peak. You don't get better by simply playing fast games, chess involves thinking and unless you're prepared to do some, you won't improve much.

As I eventually found fast games unfulfilling and didn't have enough online friends to justify spending a lot of time there, I was considering just quitting the game. But I kept logging on, which made me realise that I still liked the game. So, it was clear I had a choice, I could keep playing crappy games, or I could try to actually get better. 

I consulted Google University about how to do this and perusing a range of articles led me to Dan Heisman ,among others and they suggested that the key things needed for below average players to improve were tactics, playing long games, tactics, developing one's skills with chess strategy along with a mild focus on openings and endgames. For extra work, they suggested tactics. For advanced work, they suggested more tactics. For non chessplayers, a tactic is a forcing move or set of moves that wins you some of your opponent's army. Strategy is about where you should put your pieces so that they have some chance of participating in a tactic. Openings and endgames, as you just may have guessed, have to do with the start and end phases of the game.

Despite all the years of playing quick games of chess, I am shit at tactics, which is why I'm not that good at the game. I have signed up to Chess Tempo which a website devoted to helping chess shmucks like yours truly develop their tactical skills. It has an extensive free section but the extras were, I think, worth the small cost. I have been following the advice of Dan Heisman in how I am using Chess Tempo. Lots of repetition and lots of problems that are simple as I need to become exceptionally accurate at those problems and I need to be able to recognise those patterns consistently. Good chessplayers are not better at random pattern recognition than ordinary people, but they are superb at recognising chess patterns. I am a regular visitor to Chess Tempo and I am taking its problems seriously.

I have also started playing longer games, I am aiming to play 3 long games during a normal week and 6 long games during a holiday week. A long game is one with a time control of 45 45 or longer, so it should take at least 2 hours if both sides use their time well and will generally take more.

One of the attractions of Bejeweled Blitz was the idea that I could become good at something like I was able to when I was younger. Now I'm wondering how much an old dog, who's played a game for a long time, can improve if he sets his mind to it. Despite all the chess I've played, I have never embarked upon a systematic program of improvement in the game before.

I started about a month ago and I've noticed some small improvements, but I am still well below the heights I reached on ICC at my best, which was a over a decade ago now! When I started my program of improvement, my ICC bullet, blitz and standard ratings hovered around 1600, my Australian Chess Federation (ACF) rating for over the board play was 1341.

I played the NSW Open under 1600 over the June long weekend and achieved an unspectacular 3.5/7, beating 3 weak players and losing to 3 players who were rated a little higher than me, indicating that my rating is pretty accurate for my current level of skill. I missed basic tactics in all 3 of my losses and in 2 of my wins as well, so the decision to focus on basic tactics is clearly wise. 

I'm not sure how good I can get, not having seriously tried to improve before. I'm hoping that I can become good enough to seriously compete in an under 1600 tournament with a view to getting a rating of over 1600 so I can play against good players. Online, I'd like to have a rating that hovered in the 2000's on ICC, rather than the 1600's. Neither of those would suddenly make me a great chessplayer, but I think it would be a good indication that being a little older won't prevent you improving at a skill as long as you put in the appropriate effort.

I'm enjoying the process so far so I anticipate it will continue, if it doesn't, it's not critical as this is for fun. I intend to re-visit this post from time to time and see how much I have improved. While the journey is definitely more important than the destination, I am rather curious about where this will all end up!