I have asked my daughters to read this

Cal Newport asserts that If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong: The Surprisingly Relaxed Lives of Elite Achievers.  He recounts a study which found average and elite violin players spent about the same amount of time practicing, but that the elite players were both more focused and more relaxed.  They were more focused when they practiced and more relaxed the rest of their day.

He summarizes the results as:

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• The average players are working just as many hours as the elite players (around 50 hours a week spent on music),
• but they’re not dedicating these hours to the right type of work (spending almost 3 times less hours than the elites on crucial deliberate practice),
• and furthermore, they spread this work haphazardly throughout the day. So even though they’re not doing more work than the elite players, they end up sleeping less and feeling more stressed. Not to mention that they remain worse at the violin.

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This is a good article for students to read.  I've asked my daughters to read it.

Hat tip: My brother-in-law.