How to learn anything in just 20 hours?
4 super effective simple steps to rapid skill acquisition by The First 20 Hours Book
In a world full of distractions and more than 1 million options for a career or a skill, how will you ever decide which skill or career path is good for you?
While many of us might have different options for experimentation but the best of all ways is to learn something new and try it out, by either prototyping conversations or prototyping experiences and then eliminating the things you don’t want (I’ve talked in detail about prototyping your careers in my last article How to Design the Life you want).
Now the big question becomes, if we have to learn a new skill, how long will it take?
The 10,000 hours rule
The most common and widely spread theory about learning something is the 10,000 hours rule by Malcolm Gladwell.
My very first reaction to this rule was NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The problem with this process is “time”. 10,000 hours equates to practicing 6 hours per day, every day, for four or five years. That’s basically a full-time job!
First, I am not having 6 hours every day when my regular life and job are going on and second, I cannot spend 4-5 years learning just one skill to experiment if it’s the right thing for me or not.
I’ve got a lot of time, said no one ever!!!
Decoding the 10,000 hours rule!
Josh Kaufman, an author of the #1 International Bestseller has decoded the 10,000 hours rule in his TED talk that rule came out of studies only for expert-level performance. So basically, these 10,000 hours are not the start of a process, it’s the end. It’s the explanation of how long it takes to be in the top 1% of an ultra-competitive field.
But after the book Outliers, from where the concept got all the fame, the 10,000 hours rule has propagated in the wrong manner like a Chinese whisper as shown below.
Hence, the 10,000 rule is a myth when you just want to learn something for an experiment. So the question now is, if not 10,000 hours then how long does it take to reach this plateau?
In other words, how to learn a new skill faster?
Well, great question. Let’s find this out…
Josh Kaufman, has figured out a solution for this problem in his book - The First 20 Hours: Mastering the Toughest Part of Learning Anything.
The First 20 Hours!
Yes, it takes only 20 hours to reach the plateau where you are good enough at anything be it learning a new language, learning how to draw, sing, dance, or even do gymnastics(not at the Olympics though).
Well, that’s a relief because 20 hours is doable and sounds reasonable as well because 20 hours is basically 45 minutes of deliberate practice every day for a month.
But like any other rule, here’s a catch. It’s not just random 20 hours of fiddling around here and there, there are the 4 simple steps to rapid skill acquisition.
1. Deconstruct the Skill wrt your goal
The first step to literally anything is to get clarity. Decide exactly what your goal is when you’ll be done. You need to define what exactly the end results will look like.
To quote my favorite book, The 7 Habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey - Start with the end in your mind.
After you’re done with defining your exact end goal, you need to list down all skills and deconstruct the sub-skills for the process.
The more you’ll be able to break upon a skill, the more likely you are to get a simpler sub-skill and the more you’ll be able to decide where to start from i.e. which skill to choose to start the process to get maximum results in the first 20 hours.
2. Learn Enough to Self-Correct (Research)
Researching is the most important part as you want to get the process right.
It’s a common practice to download 5 Udemy courses and get 15 books and think that I am going to program software when I am done with all of these books and courses but trust me, that’s not learning, that’s PROCRASTINATION.
So, stay out of this rattrap and get to learn just enough to self-edit when you practice.
Make researching a part of your learning process.
3. Remove the practice barriers
This is the most common yet most difficult step which you might have heard of in all aspects of life. You need to get the work done in able to get the results. There is no easy way out.
And we all know what’s the biggest barrier to practice - our attention span!
In an era where the attention span is decreasing day by day, consciously remove the practice barriers - phones, TV, social gatherings and set a priority list in life.
The best way to deal with this is the concept introduced in the excellent book, THE One Thing by Gary Keller which shares the Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by asking the Focusing Question (as mentioned below) and time-blocking to get the maximum results your priority. I highly recommend this book and here’s a quick summary.
So make learning the skill your “one thing”, use your willpower and remove all the barriers to practice which comes your way.
4. Commit to the 20 hours in advance
Though this sounds like an obvious step, most skills come with a frustration barrier where you are close enough to learn something but you are also frustrated enough when you’re not seeing your progress or early success.
Nobody wants to look stupid and the feeling of stupidity when you know something but you don’t know enough is the barrier to us when we actually sit down and practice to finish our first 20 hours.
The best way to do this is to make learning the skill a habit. Atomic Habits is the best resource if you’re looking for creating a habit. Here’s my summary of the book. Having an accountability partner also helps in the process of starting, maintaining, and finishing your 20 hours!
Hence, end the process of practicing for at least 20 hours by fighting with your inner judgemental demons. Do not leave it halfway. Stay in the game to actually reap the rewards!
Conclusion
I know you might be thinking that it’s all easy in theory but it’s even more fun to practice. If you follow the process with self-discipline, you’ll learn any new skill in the first 20 hours and then you’ll be able to refine the skill as you practice even further.
The best part, if you don’t enjoy the first 20 hours, you can always go back to the start of the process, pick something new and experiment with the process. It’s a win-win.
I hope this article will help you decide your goal and pick up a skill, deconstruct it, learn enough to self-correct, remove the practice barriers and stay in the game for at least 20 hours to change the outcomes or switch to something else. Simple!
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter to share your feedback.
Love, Anjali <3