Have you ever wondered how long it takes to learn a new skill? Maybe you would like to learn to play an instrument, try a new kind of sport, or speed up the reading pace? No matter what it is, you have certainly made excuses like I'm too busy right now or it will take too long.
Exploring this topic, one may come across Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book entitled 'Outliers: The Story of Success'. In his book, Gladwell writes about the so-called 10,000-hour rule. It says that we need approximately 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a given field. This number is intimidating. It's like working full time for 5 years. Malcolm Gladwell studied cases of professional athletes, world-class musicians, and chess grandmasters. It is no secret that these fields are considered to be highly demanding and ultra-competitive. But the question is, do we want to become masters in a highly competitive discipline or just learn something new and finally become pretty good at it? The good news is that you need much less time to achieve the latter.
Looking at different books dedicated to the topic of skill acquisition, one can often see the chart similar to the one below.
Source: https://www.themetalearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/josh-kaufman-20-hours.png
This graph is called the learning curve. With just a little bit of practice, you get much better in a short time, until you reach a certain level. This point is called a plateau. From now on, consecutive gains become much harder to get. During the journey of acquiring a new skill, we want to reach this point as soon as possible. In a huge number of cases, it's possible in just 20 hours. It's approximately 45 minutes per day for a month. One may ask, how this can be achieved? The key is to practice intelligently and efficiently. This involves splitting the work into four stages.
Firstly, deconstruct the skill. It means you must exactly define what you want to learn. The important thing is it should be measurable. Then divide the skill into smaller pieces. Often something we describe as a single skill requires a wide range of various things. Secondly, learn enough to self-correct. You need to gain a skill level required to notice your mistakes and be able to fix them. This is called the learning loop. Thirdly, remove practice barriers. Dispose of things that impede your inspiration to exercise. Make it more manageable to rehearse, by removing all interruptions.
After completing the above three steps, there is a time to exercise for a minimum of 20 hours. If you're ready to take on the challenge of learning a new skill, I'd love to hear about it in a comment.
Questions:
- Have you heard of the 20 hour method before?
- What is a new skill you would like to learn?
- Do you often think about what you could potentially do and procrastinate?
Sources:
- http://sourcesofinsight.com/learn-anything-20-hours/
- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3228917-outliers
- Josh Kaufman - “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything...Fast”
Super artykuł
ReplyDelete1. I've heard about different ways of learning so far. It seems, that the 20-hour method can be also used to learn languages, but in this case I think that flashcards, podcasts and movies with subtitles are very useful. By using the 20 hour method we can also learn how to organize meal plans during the day by reading a few books and interesting articles. In this way, I created my own diet which suit my needs and in 4 months I dropped 10 kg of extra weight!
ReplyDelete2. The next skill I would like to learn would be playing the guitar. I think that the method of learning 20 hours will help me to achieve the planned effects. Nowadays many of us spend a lot of time at home, so this is a great opportunity to learn something new!
3. I've never thought about it, but I think I'm delaying the organization of my dream wedding. In those days it may also be a good opportunity to make the necessary lists, which easily can help us to organize such an event in the future.
I think that "learn in 20 hours" sounds like a marketing gimmick, but as I read the article makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI have recently started practicing this principle myself - I have small measurable goals and the main goal. Each small exercise leads to the goal. But it seems to me that reaching a plateau is depressing - achieving results is motivating.
As for the article - it is extremely interesting how you can find a phenomenon in everyday life that you have never heard of before!
I have never heard of the 20 hours method, if I had to choose what I want to learn - but to be divisible and measurable - maybe some acrobatic figure? In many instructional videos you can see a similar method and I think it would be nice to do it.
Every morning I think about what I could do if I got up with the first alarm clock, but I practically never do it :)
What do you think, to master what skill 20 hours method may be the most suitable?
As I read the article, it seemed pretty interesting. I admit I have seen such methods here and there but I always considered these things as cheap adverts. As far as I get the whole article and the main purpose I still think this is a little bit exaggerated. What I mean is that there are things/goals that cannot be simply done or learned in such a short time. Maybe this method is doing well while splitting our goals into smaller pieces and trying to take them step by step. Eventually, isn't 'learn English in 20 hours' a little bit far-fetched?
ReplyDeleteI have heard about this method before, but I also consider it as an advertising slogan - for example social media ads are overfilled wih this catchy words. In my opinion - if someone decided to use this
ReplyDeletelerning method, should be a well-organized individual. I think this is one of my biggest obstacles why I can't try this method ;) If I tried this method I would like to learn how to do the splits. Learnng this skill requires a lot of work, organization and patience - so I think this is perfect goal to achive by deviding it into small pieces.
Do I often think about what you could potentially do? Of course - almost every day I think about it, but then I need to back to work ;)
Have you heard of the 20 hour method before?
ReplyDeleteI've heard about 1000h rule but to be honest never about her tiny-sister. It's hard for me to believe that you can achieve satisfying outcome in some more complex tasks. I can imagine being overall good in f.x. rope-jumping after 20h of practice but what about new programming language or rather 1st programming language? What means good then?
What is a new skill you would like to learn?
What was always outside of my range because of shitty balance - skateboarding. That's one of that activity that I'm completely bad at but still - I couldn't imagine that 20h would be enough for me :D
Do you often think about what you could potentially do and procrastinate?
I'm trying to self-organize so I won't procrastinate because I noticed long ago that if I won't monitor how's the day going I might lose a lot of time by just chilling so I need to keep my schedule tight to be on time with everything.
I've never heard of this method. This's a very interesting field. Thanks to this post I'd like to learn how to be more productive in learning - this is my new resolution.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've been procrastinating a lot lately. But the world is moving forward so it's time to change my approach!
I have never heard about this method, but I think that 20 hours can be a pretty good time to learn a skill in some kind of basic level. Of course sometimes you must spend many more hours to have skills to do something new, but after a month it is possible to have knowledge in certain topic. I would like to learn how to play a guitar, but it is hard to learn that alone, especially when you must stay at home with whole family because of quarantine :-) I try to do everything I think about and avoid procrastination, but of course there are days when you don't want to do anything.
ReplyDeleteI’ve never heard about this method before. It sounds very interesting. To be honest, I’m pretty sure that every student has tried methods similar to the one mentioned in the article before the exam session with no exception. I’d like to learn much more about the whole development of apps including every stage. I’m sure that it can be done only with many years of experience but I’d like to gain this necessary experience to become a good software engineer. To be honest, I don’t think about procrastination at all.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I hear about this method. I've been trying to learn new skills a lot of time but got lost in motivation and couldn't see the end or any mille stones.
ReplyDeleteThere are actually few things that I'd love to learn but just need to motivate myself. The first one would be some robotics and electric skills and next I'd start learning to play on some instrument. I've had this time in my life when I was procrastinating a lot, but after few months I've realised how easy it is to get off the track and just stay in one place. Since then I'm trying to move forward but only in career skills totally forgeting about any hobbies etc.
1. I definetely admit, the 20 hours rule sounds much better, that a 10,000, which after calculations amounts to aprox.55 years.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed many e-learning activities, as well as all kinds of alternative learning platforms and institutions have developed recently. They offer the possibility of acquiring a new skill in a relatively short amount time, for example by attending a bootcamp or participating in a online course. In many cases, this does not achive the results, as some skills are simply too sothisticated to be taught under time rush and limited resources. A good example are programming bootcamps, which are being widely advertised in the last years. Participants are supposed to master a choose programming language on a level high enought to find a job, however it is not brought to their attention, that coding is a very sophisticated skill and even a few months of intensive learning might not gurantee a level high enought to secure a job position. Website such a udemy provide a wide selection of courses on a variety of topics, but it usually serves merely a an introduction or guideline in which direction one could develop themselves.
2. The new skill, that I would acquire using this technique would most likely be playing the piano. I this in this case, you could learn the basics in a relative short time period, provided that you can play another musical instrument.
3. I unconsciously procrastinate tasks all the time. This is a result of bad time management or undertaking too many of them at one time.
I have heard about it before, and was willing to try it, but as this article mentions in the first paragraph my head goes off the idea of learning new stuff very easily saying things that I don't have that much time for that and during this 45 minutes I can do so much stuff that are more meaningfull to me. It is also called laziness because than I will end up watching a TV series for few hours. :D
ReplyDeleteIf i was going to learn a new skill it would definitely be playing a guitar, I always wanted to learn and be that one who always shows up to bonfires with this instrument and brighten people evening, but unfortunatelly I live in a flat so if I was to decide to learn how to play a guitar my neighbours would kill me. I procrastinate almost everything in my life but only if those are my private stuff but I always keep up to deadlines. I wanted to change that a lot of times but there are so many distractions along the way. The good thing that I don't do that in work. :)
I've never heard about this 20 hour method before but it looks like very interesting concept so I'm sure I'll read more about it. I'm a little sceptical about it, though. I think it's possible to learn some skills that quickly but I believe there are some activities which require muscle memory more than others and it seems impossible to train it in 20 hours.
ReplyDeleteFew months ago I was going to learn playing ukulele and I even bought one but after trying once or twice my enthusiasm faded so I believe I'd like to get the motivation again.
I used to think about it very often but then I realized I'm not a robot but a human being and there's a reason why our brain feels lazy from time to time. If we are doing something constantly there's no time to think and vice versa so I believe there should be a time to act as well as time to procrastinate and catch a breath.
No, I haven't heard about the 20 hour method so far. It seems to be quite reasonable, because it reflects directly the shape of the learning curve. On the other hand, the claim that we can learn everything in 20 hours sound like a small exaggeration. There are certainly many skills that require much more time to achieve an average level.
ReplyDeleteI would like to try to learn how to play a musical instrument, but in the current situation it will be difficult to fulfill, so maybe in a year or two...
I often procrastinate and I try to fight it as much as I can. But looking from the different perspective, I guess that we shouldn't plan everything in our lives.
I haven't heard about this method, but I'd like to try it on myself, maybe during learning to play chess. I guess it would work, the amount of time is fair, it just demand consequence and resilience. Unfortunately, I procrastinate a lot and very often I have a lot of plans what to do next when I need to concentrate and accomplish some task.
ReplyDeleteWow, sounds interesting to me. I haven't heard about this method before, such a nice concept. If it really works I would learn how to play piano. Well, sometimes when I feel lazy I try to fight with myself, then I try to focus on my work. If I would do this all the time I'll be an astronaut ;)
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven’t heard about this method, but it sounds interesting! Now I’m sitting at home (hehe, you probably too :P) so it’s great opportunity to try it. I want to learn new language, maybe Spanish. But to be honest, I want to learn how to manage my time. This is the skill that I desire most. This will help me not to put my duties on “later mode”.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard about this method before. In general, I'm not very interested in similar methods and techniques. I do not believe that a person can master a new field in 20 hours. In every field of activity, sports, musical instrument, important is not only a skill. For example you can play the piano perfectly, but you don't be able to represent yourself or you can't be creative enough to create a new song that would be a hit.
ReplyDeleteNot only skill, but also experience, endurance, the ability to communicate with people and many other details that we acquire along the way of development are important on the way of development.
I think that using similar techniques you can pretend that you have a skill, but most likely it will not be useful.
I haven't heard about this method before. Thanks for introducing this method to me. I would like to learn plaing guitar,thats my childhood dream, but I never found enough time to do it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I haven’t heard about this method before. Nevertheless, I find this approach interesting and I will certainly read more about it. It can help us to remove barriers and realize that we can learn basically anything.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I would like to learn first is Spanish. I believe that Spanish culture is unique, which is why I would love to go to this country and use the local language for communication.
Recently, I devote a lot of time to learn new things. I find it hard to enjoy doing nothing and that’s why I simply believe procrastination isn’t for me. I postpone tasks that I can do later, but this is usually part of my extensive schedule.
Jakub Magnowski
DeleteI once heard about this method and I think that these are very valuable tips to start learning. However, I do not know if it is a method for everyone, because I know people and skills that needs teacher to learn.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, I would love to learn how to sew and I think that in this case such a method might not work. However, it seems to me that it is perfect for learning a foreign language.
I usually postpone learning new things, but I also try to motivate myself to learn, e.g. I look at people who have skills and ask about everything. ;)
hm very interesting i never heard about this method. There are many books on the rapid acquisition of knowledge. For example "Super Memory" as wikipedia claim "is a learning method and software package developed by SuperMemo World and SuperMemo (..) to the present. It is based on research into long-term memory, and is a practical application of the spaced repetition learning method that has been proposed for efficient instruction by a number of psychologists as early as in the 1930s."
ReplyDeleteThis 20 hour method seems to me very attractive proposition, I have a lot of material to absorb for the exam (driving license), maybe I will try, of course, how the pandemic time will pass ...
Maybe this way I will also learn Italian if I was not able to high school for 3 years ... ;)
We can see actually.. with one of us, commenters is probably the greatest master of procrastination, however I don't think procrastination is bad..