Your tips and tricks to get faster

[Rubik the Cubik]

So I've spent a while now just learning more algorithms, f2l etc and not leaving time to practice and improve my speed with them. Now is that time. I'm going to put on hold learning 2-look LL Let me explain where I'm up to.

1. I learned the Dan Brown beginner's method on boxing day 2013.
2. I learned some finger tricks.
3. I practiced and intuitively learned some mirrors getting my times' mostly below 90 seconds PB probably 70 secondsish.
4. I researched speed cubing and decided to learn CFOP with cross on bottom in September 2014.
5. I learned badmephisto's beginner method.
6. I learned intuitive f2l.
7. I learned some more/better finger tricks and also advanced notation.
8. I learned 2-look OLL.
9. I learned 2-look PLL.
10. I decided to become colour neutral which I am currently working on (I can do it but there's more thinking involved so my times' are slightly higher)
11. I looked a bit into advanced cross which I am working on.
12. I looked at f2l algorithms for tips.
13. I also looked at how to speed up f2l such as reducing cube rotations (also practicing).
14. I looked a bit into look ahead but need further research.
15. Time to practice!

So because I've constantly been learning something new and while I'm practicing each new thing my times' generally become slower (in the short term) I haven't been able to improve on them a great deal. This is what I'm going to be doing now! I'm probably averaging 80 seconds now, PB 55 seconds.

I'd greatly appreciate any advice on how to improve. Obviously practice is a good place to start. Any videos etc would be useful. I plan to improve my advanced cross, f2l look ahead and efficiency, recognition time and execution time of algorithms. Any tips on how to do this?

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Slow down and make sure your transitions from each step are smooth, watch some of jskyler91's lookahead videos later on but they really help, don't turn as FAST as you can now and pause.

 

[theROUXbiksCube]

Plus if you practice consistently and plan out your first step (cross I think) that will drop your times dramatically.
Also slow down your f2l do slow solves and learn from them and incorporate the new things you learned into a future speed solve

 

[Rocky0701]

Basically just practice F2L until you no longer have to think about how to solve a certain case, and know it instead as muscle memory. I would say hold of on learning full PLL until you get down to averaging about 45 seconds. F2L is the most important area of a CFOP solve and is the area which has the most room for improvement.

 

[Rubik the Cubik]

Ok, thanks all helpful advice. I think my f2l is probably where I'll cut my times' down.

 

[GG]

Learn to learn.
Find out which parts of your solves are the slowest and improve on them, the faster you get, the better you are at identifying your weakness, but less of those weaknesses exist.
e.g. when I average about 25 I was doing cross on U and then doing x2 [building the cross on the top and then rotating to put it on the bottom].
this added on about 5 seconds because of the massive pause after rotating between cross and f2l [cross to f2l transition was slow]
I practiced building the cross on the bottom and moving straight into pairs.
This subsequently helped me to get faster.