Two weeks ago I stumbled upon this TEDx talk by Josh Kaufman, entitled “The first 20 hours — How to learn anything”, and I was intrigued.
Josh’s topic was simply about — “How long does it really take to learn a skill”.
The argument started with the 10,000 hour rule study of Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, a psychologist and professor at Florida State University, mostly known as the “Expert of experts”.
The rule generally states that you need to exert at least 10,000 hours of effort in order to be on top of an extra-competitive field. The study was based on high-performance individuals and the amount of effort it took them to achieve their status.
The 10,000 rule was then became well-known through Malcolm Gladwell’s book — “Outliers”. By that time the book was
As what Josh calls “a game of telephone”, the original meaning of the 10,000 hour rule eventually became, you need to spend 10,000 hours to learn a skill.
This is definitely untrue.
As Josh said, there are moments in our lives where we managed to pick up a skill nowhere near that amount of time.
This was an intriguing question. I never really tried to have metrics or track data on how long it took me to learn a skill. Nor have I been interested in knowing the metrics on how to learn one.
After a few minutes of discussion, Josh then proceeded to showcase the skills that you could learn through the 20 hour rule. According to him, it can be anything.
Josh eventually played the Ukulele and sang songs to the audience. After his performance, he stated that he finally completed his 20hours of training through the set.
As a fellow musician, even though he did a simple and common four-chord progression, it had me thinking…
Does the First 20 hour rule really work?
Unpacking the 20 hour rule
Josh Kaufman said it best,
“People get good at things, with a little bit of practice”
Whenever you’re starting to learn a new task or a new skill, it takes quite some time before you can get the hang of it.
Once you’ve reached the level where you’re confident and good enough, subsequent practices get easier — but more advance. You become good at the “standard” level for the certain skill.
But, how long does it take?
20 hours.
It takes 20 hours to reach the level of experience from being incompetent, to becoming good at it. Only 20 hours.
Succeeding hours of practice will of course continue to help, but as you move forward in the progression of studying, certain subsets are harder to practice — and the results are not as noticeable compared to starting. You can go from nothing to learning any skill that you can think of.
But this doesn’t mean spending all 20 hours of practice makes you reach level.
There are certain steps to consider that help you practice intelligently and efficiently to make sure you make the most out of the 20 hours.
1. Deconstruct the skill
Skills are actually a big bundle of smaller and different things, that when you breakdown into smaller pieces, helps you determine which factors are the ones that help you achieve results better.
Practice important and smaller factors first and you will be able to achieve results faster.
2. Learn enough to self-correct
When learning a new skill, resources are of utmost importance. Without these resources, we are unable to learn the technicalities and the right method on learning certain skills.
What is important, however, is to learn enough to self-correct. Don’t make the resources that you’ve acquired be the reason for your procrastination.
The learning method goes to learning enough to notice that you’re making a mistake, then try a different method.
3. Remove practice barriers
Once you’ve gathered your resources, focus at the task at hand. Cut your connection from every distraction possible to help you and your willpower to push through the early stages of learning.
Disconnect from the internet, put on your phone on silence, lock your room — do anything that you can to remove the barriers and focus on practicing. Once you’ve passed that, it should be easier.
4. Practice at least 20 hours
Whenever starting a new skill, we have this sense of incompetence that we are all aware of. It makes us feel dumb, worthless, and frustrated.
Once you’ve removed your barriers and proceeded to practice consistently, you will eventually reach 20 hours and overcome the initial frustration barrier.
From then, moving forward beyond the 20th hour mark allows you to reap the benefits and rewards that you’ve committed on. You will be surprised of your results.
My experience
Weeks before I learned about the 20 hour rule, I created a “personal curriculum” where I took former college curriculum and placed key subjects into my schedule.
After two months of constantly going through old notes, research, and questioning forums with at least an hour a day for a different subject — my knowledge grew.
This proves that setting down even just an hour a day focused in any topic that you want to explore, it allows you to learn. Add in consistency and you’ll be satisfied with the results.
But we’re talking about skills here, not old literature or history lessons. Does the 20 hour rule still apply?
The answer is yes.
10,000 hour rule vs The first 20 hours
Josh Kaufman, Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, and Malcolm Gladwell are all correct in their claims. In order to achieve expert level performance, you need to exert as much effort you can — perhaps more or at least near 10,000 hours.
In several studies, it concludes that all the individuals who were tested are high-level performing individuals. This varies depending on their field, but the conclusion states that they all exerted tremendous amount of work.
But does this mean you really need to exert 10,000 hours, or even just a 1,000 hours to learn a skill?
No.
I personally wouldn’t consider spending a vast amount of time and effort into skills that I don’t see that are beneficial to me directly. Unless you have plans to truly excel at your target, the 20 hour rule will suffice.
Final thoughts
We are constantly learning and adapting everyday. Rushing is life’s biggest enemy as we sometimes pass by the lessons we are supposed to learn.
Learning one skill an hour a day, will do wonders more than trying to learn everything in one sitting. Not only do we acquire the discipline of waiting, but we gain the lessons of hard work.
Pick out whatever you want to learn then dedicate time at least once a day. You will be surprised by the results.
