I read someplace that if you practice something for five minutes a day you should see improvement over time. This past year I put that to the test and played darts for five minutes almost every day. On Saturday I played a game of
baseball and tracked those scores. In March I started playing two games to get a better sense of how I was going. I chose darts because there is basically no setup time required and it is easy to quantify improvement over time.
 |
| Too bad I was aiming at the 1 |
It took me a while to come up with a training routine that I felt comfortable with and seemed to produce results. I didn't want to just throw darts randomly or play the same game every night so I used several strategies throughout the year. At first I was just aiming for the 20 or the 3 and was happy when all of the darts hit the top half or bottom half of the board respectively. Over time I got more specific and aimed for different sections. At the end I was running through the numbers and wouldn't progress to the next number until I hit the target with at least one dart.
I also experimented with my stance to find the most comfortable position. This didn't take as long but it did seem to make a big difference in my improvement. Getting to the point where I was consistent with my throws was definitely a major part of the process.
Over time I definitely saw improvement. While I wouldn't say that I'm a very good dart player I am happy with what I have seen this year and I plan to keep practicing on a regular basis. I probably won't make a point of playing five minutes every day, but I will try to get a few games in every week.
You can see a chart of my scores for the year here on Tableau.
Tracking dart scores for 2015
