---
id:
aliases: []
title: Individual Ability
tags:
  - authorship/original
  - destiny/permanent
  - status/incomplete
  - topic/individualism
  - topic/ergonomics/organizational
  - type/philosophy
dg-publish: true
---
# Individual Ability

**Effort is the smallest part of improvement.**

This note is about practical ability.
For discussion of how others _perceive_ ability,
see [[professionalism]].

Individuals differ in **learning rate** and **capacity for familiarity**.
Whether nature or nurture is to blame,
there is little an adult can do to move those needles.
Making the most of the resources one has
requires developing effective coping mechanisms
(like [[note-taking]]).

To gain and maintain skill is time consuming.
The barrier to greater professional skill
for most people is **prior responsibility**.

## Capacity for Familiarity

There is a practical limit to the mind's "shelf space".
It's not only a question of experience or exposure,
familiarity requires maintenance.

> [!example]
> As of 2025-11-05 the original content of [[this-notebook]]
> would take almost two hours to read,
> and though I try to make it otherwise,
> it likely doesn't contain an eighth of my professional knowledge.

%%

## TALK

Expertise as [[heuristics]] and biases
[[kahneman_2011_thinking]]

%%
