Misleads who exactly? There are many things to which we ascribe ratios that have nothing to do with time. For instance, people say poker is 80% skill and 20% luck (more for tournament poker, less for limit ring games). Does that mean we should spend 20% of our time rubbing rabbit's feet? Not to anyone who has spent anytime playing poker.
I have been involved in sports at a fairly high level, and to assume that 90% of athletes (or other professionals) apportion time based based on non-concrete goals is, frankly, naive. First a non sport related example: Let's assume we have a Rails programmer who really wants to gain experience with Scala. I would contend there about 0% chance he sits down and says I want to spend 30% of my time learning Scala and then starts reading books. A more realistic scenario would likely revolve around picking a project and spending time completing that project, a concrete goal. The same holds true for a professional baseball player. When he goes out and takes hitting practice, it is not just to hit better, it is to improve his swing motion or change his mechanics, or mess with his footwork, all concrete goals. Yes, he wants to improve his swing, but there is no way he goes out there and says I want to spend 30% of my time improving my swing, he thinks, today I will work on my stance and tomorrow I will work on my grip etc. Sorry if this is belaboring the point, but I think it nonsensical to assume that high-level professionals anywhere do this kind of rationing.
That's not say that we should do away with non-concrete goals altogether. They are important drivers and having some indefinite goal for the future is a good mechanism to drive us to do the smaller things. That said, it is my experience that we partition time for concrete things (heavy bag work, jump rope, complete newest incarnation of website frontend, practice mozart on piano, etc etc.) more efficiently, and most importantly way more often.
I have been involved in sports at a fairly high level, and to assume that 90% of athletes (or other professionals) apportion time based based on non-concrete goals is, frankly, naive. First a non sport related example: Let's assume we have a Rails programmer who really wants to gain experience with Scala. I would contend there about 0% chance he sits down and says I want to spend 30% of my time learning Scala and then starts reading books. A more realistic scenario would likely revolve around picking a project and spending time completing that project, a concrete goal. The same holds true for a professional baseball player. When he goes out and takes hitting practice, it is not just to hit better, it is to improve his swing motion or change his mechanics, or mess with his footwork, all concrete goals. Yes, he wants to improve his swing, but there is no way he goes out there and says I want to spend 30% of my time improving my swing, he thinks, today I will work on my stance and tomorrow I will work on my grip etc. Sorry if this is belaboring the point, but I think it nonsensical to assume that high-level professionals anywhere do this kind of rationing.
That's not say that we should do away with non-concrete goals altogether. They are important drivers and having some indefinite goal for the future is a good mechanism to drive us to do the smaller things. That said, it is my experience that we partition time for concrete things (heavy bag work, jump rope, complete newest incarnation of website frontend, practice mozart on piano, etc etc.) more efficiently, and most importantly way more often.