(2013-05-24) Kaufman First 20 Hours To Learn Anything

Josh Kaufman re-frames the "TenKHours of Deliberate Practice to Mastery" rule and claims you can learn any skill pretty well (Good Enough?) with 20 hours of practice.

He says there are 4 key steps:

  • Deconstruct the skill into pieces. This lets you Focus on the pieces that you're really interested in, and makes each one easier to practice/learn.
  • Get to the point where you can Self Correct (FeedBack).
  • Get rid of interruptions/distractions
  • Put in 20hrs. He notes that the barrier to getting through those 20hrs is more emotional than anything else.

He demonstrates this by playing the Four Chord Song from Axis Of Awesome on the Uke, having just hit 20hrs of practice (excellent hook!).

Learning the Uke is one chapter in his First20Hours book. Along with Learning Programming, Yoga, Go (the Board Game, not Programming Language), Touch Typing, Wind Surfing...

Hrm, I think some areas are more of a Wicked Problem, where the more you learn the more you realize you don't understand. cf Hard Work.


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