Normally when I talk about learing quickly, I’m using speed as a synonym for efficiency.Use more effective methods and you’ll learn more in less time.All else being equal, that means you’re learing faster.
通常我在谈到快速学习时，是把“速度"当作“效率"的同义词来用的。使用更高效的方法，就能用更少时间学会更多内容。 在其他条件不变的情况下，这就意味着学得更快。
Today, however, I want to consider a different meaning for speed:how quickly should you try to do things in order to improve performance.
但今天我想谈谈速度的另一层意思:为了提高水平，你应该以多快的速度做一件事情?
One way to imagine this is to look at something like chess.Chess can be played at different speed levels:you could play tournament-length games, which take hours.You could play blitz, which has only a few minutes, or bullet chess where moves are counted in seconds.
一种思考的办法是考虑下棋这样的活动。可以以不同的速度下棋:你可以像棋类锦标赛那样下，一局花几个小时;也可以下快棋，一局只要几分钟，或者更快的快棋，每一步只有几秒钟思考。

If your goal were to improve at chess, which kind should you make your core practice?
如果你的目标是提高棋艺，应该着重练习哪种呢?
Speed and Transfer
速度与迁移
The first thing to consider is that often what we think of as a single skill is actually different skills when viewed from different timeframes.
首先需要考虑的是，通常我们认为是同一种技能的东西，从不同时间框架来看，其实是不同的技能。
Consider solving a math problem.You can painstakingly calculate an exact answer.Or you can ballpark it using some guessing.While the two skills are related, they are, strictly speaking, different mental abilities.
比如解决数学问题。你既可以费力地计算一个准确的结果，也可以估计一个大概的范围。这两种技能虽然相关，但严格说起来，它们是不同的智能。
The research on transfer shows that when we train skills, they tend to be learned quite narrowly.So tons of time learing to do back-of -the-envelope calculations may not improve your calculating skills as much as you’d expect.This also works in the opposite direction as you may be able to get the ‘right’ answer, but without a quick guess that’s in the bllpark.
关于能力迁移的研究表明，我们在训练某种能力时，往往只能训练到非常有限的一部分。因此，花大量时间练习粗略地估算，并不会像你希望的那样提高计算能力。反之也一样，你或许能够计算出“正确”的答案，但无法粗略地估计是否在合理的范围。
I experienced this firsthand when working on my portraint drawing project.
我在进行肖像画项目时就亲身体会了这一现象，
My initial thought was that drawing faces well came from ‘guessing’ the relative positions of facial features, lines and shapes.Thus if I simply did more and more quick practice, my guesses would get increasingly accurate and I’d draw realistic pictures.Speed, then, made sense.
我一开始认为，画好人物面部肖像，靠的是“估计"五官、线条和形状的相对位置。因此，只要我练习越来越多的速写，就会估计得越来越准确，从而画出逼真的肖像。速度在这里是说得通的。
This worked, for a while, but eventually I found that my problem wasn’t accuracy but precision.There was too much variablility in my guesses even if I wasn’t systematically making a particular kind of mistake.
这起作用了一阵子，但最终我发现自己的问题不是准确度，而是精确性。尽管我没有系统性地犯特定某种错误，但我的估计还是有太多不一致的地方。
The solution ended up being learning a different method for drawing based on triangulation, as taught by Vitruvian Studio.This method, in contrast to my guess-andsketch approach, was not fast.My first attempts took hours.With practice, I could do it faster, but it was still much slower and more painstaking than sketching.
最终的解决办法，是我学习了Vitruvian Studio教的三角定位画法。与我自己的估计、速写式画法不同，这种方法并不快。我最开始尝试时花了几个小时。经过练习，我可以画得快一些，但仍然比速写慢得多、辛苦得多。

The result was that I got better at drawing portraits, but only weakly better at doing quick sketches. The skills I enhanced mostly worked when I had at least an hour to draw, not sixty seconds.If I wanted to get better at the sixty-second sketches, I’d probably need to master different techniques.
结果是，我的肖像画画得好多了，但是速写只提高了一点。只有当我有至少一小时而不是只有一分钟画画时，通过三角定位画法训练的技能才能发挥作用。如果我想要提高六十秒速写的水平，恐怕需要掌握另外的技巧。
The lesson here is that the timeframe you need to perform a skill within often constrains the methods you can use to master it.The way you solve a problem in ten seconds is often, cognitively speaking, quite different from the way you solve it in an hour.
从这件事中得到的经验是，有多长时间做一件事，通常限制了掌握所需技能应用的方法。花十秒钟解决一个问题的方法，从认知学的角度来说，通常与花一小时解决的方法是大不相同的。