“What does APM have to do with micro?”

Higher APM just means you click more.

“Is there some relationship between clicking more and micro?”

Not really.

APM = MICRO?

There is one school of thought that says you should spam actions to raise your APM and eventually the spam will magically turn into micro. I say bulls***. I think you should get rid of unnecessary actions so they don’t distract you. The key is to stay calm and keep everything on the screen in your attention instead of spamming actions and getting caught up in one thing. Everyone has probably experienced at one time or another, like while watching a replay, totally missing something during the game. “I didn’t even realize that happened.” If this happens to you, you really need to just STOP clicking and doing so much stuff and first learn how to WATCH the game and be aware of what is happening. Admittedly, this still happens to me a lot especially if I haven’t been playing or haven’t warmed up; I coined a term for it back in my 220-200 AT days, I call it “game awareness.” The first step towards improving your micro is working on your game awareness, not increasing your APM.

Tying it Together

So what’s next? After you can watch the game when playing without getting lost is when micro begins. You want to stay calm and go through the actions. Staff a unit, pass staff, staff unit, pass it again. Select footman, move it back, select group, deselect footman and regroup. It should all be very smooth.

When you lose your step and the smoothness breaks, for example if your opponents just really outmicroes you and you slip when a footman didn’t get deselected, the best thing to do is just stop and regain composure. It’s like if you’re playing in an orchestra or something and you get lost, you’re a measure behind. You have to stop before you can start again.