How long it takes to learn anything new? Nepal Reads
It takes
10,000 hours. If you want to learn something new, if you want to be good at it,
it's going to take 10,000 hours to get there.
The 10,000 hour rule came out of
studies of expert-level performance. There's a professor at Florida State
University, his name is K. Anders Ericsson. He is the originator of the 10,000
hour rule. And where that came from is, he studied professional athletes, world
class musicians, chess grand masters. All of this ultra-competitive folks in
ultra-high performing fields. And he tried to figure out how long it takes to
get to the top of those kinds of fields.
So this
message, it takes 10,000 hours to reach the top of an ultra-competitive field,
became, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, which became,
it takes 10,000 hours to become good at something, which became, it takes
10,000 hours to learn something.
But Josh
Kaufman says if you put 20 hours of focused deliberate practice into that
thing, you will be astounded at how good you are. 20 hours is doable, that's
about 45 minutes a day for about a month. Even skipping a couple days, here and
there. 20 hours isn't that hard to accumulate.
Now, there's a method to doing
this. Because it's not like you can just start fiddling around for about 20
hours and expect these massive improvements. There's a way to practice
intelligently. There's a way to practice efficiently, that will make sure that
you invest those 20 hours in the most effective way that you possibly can.
And
here's the method, it applies to anything.
The first is to deconstruct the skill.
Decide exactly what you want to be
able to do when you're done, and then look into the skill and break it down
into smaller pieces. Most of the things that we think of as skills are actually
big bundles of skills that require all sorts of different things. The more you
can break apart the skill, the more you're able to decide, what are the parts
of this skill that would actually help me get to what I want? And then you can practice
those first. And if you practice the most important things first, you'll be
able to improve your performance in the least amount of time possible.
The second is, learn enough to self-correct.
So, get three to five resources about
what it is you're trying to learn. Could be book, could be DVDs, could be
courses, and could be anything. But don't use those as a way to procrastinate
on practice. I know I do this, right? Get like 20 books about the topic, like,
"I'm going to start learning how to program a computer when I complete
these 20 books". No. That's procrastination. What you want to do is learn
just enough that you can actually practice and self-correct or self-edit as you
practice. So the learning becomes a way of getting better at noticing when you're
making a mistake and then doing something a little different.
The third is to remove barriers to
practice.
Distractions, television, internet. All of these things that get in the way of
you actually sitting down and doing the work. And the more you're able to use
just a little bit of willpower to remove the distractions that are keeping you
from practicing, the more likely you are to actually sit down and practice,
right?
And the fourth is to practice for at
least 20 hours.
Now,
most skills have what I call a frustration barrier. You know, the
grossly-incompetent- and-knowing-it part? That's really, really frustrating. We
don't like to feel stupid. And feeling stupid is a barrier to us actually
sitting down and doing the work. So, by pre-committing to practicing whatever
it is that you want to do for at least 20 hours, you will be able to overcome
that initial frustration barrier and stick with the practice long enough to
actually reap the rewards.
That's it!
It's not rocket science. Four very simple steps that you can use to learn
anything.. Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's
end. The major barrier to learn something new is not intellectual, it's not the
process of you learning a bunch of little tips or tricks or things. The major
barrier's emotional. We're scared. Feeling stupid doesn't feel good, in the
beginning of learning anything new you feel really stupid. So the major
barrier's not intellectual, it's emotional. But put 20 hours into anything. It
doesn't matter. What do you want to learn? Do you want to learn a language?
Want to learn how to cook? Want to learn how to draw? What turns you on? What
lights you up? Go out and do that thing. It only takes 20 hours.