For Lela
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note to the Reader
1 A Portrait of the Author as a Learning Junkie
2 Ten Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition
3 Ten Principles of Effective Learning
4 Yoga
5 Programming
6 Touch Typing
7 Go
8 Ukulele
9 Windsurfing
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Mantesh
A Note to the Reader
The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.
—GEOFFREY CHAUCER, PARLEMENT OF FOULES, 1374
•••
“There’s so much I want to do . . . and so little time.” The story of modern life.
Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn how to do. What’s on your list?
What’s holding you back from getting started?
Two things, most likely: time and skill.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: the most rewarding experiences in life almost always require some
level of skill. Skills take time and effort to master—time we don’t have, and effort we’re reluctant to
contribute.
“I’ll get around to it someday, when I find the time.”
It’s easier to sit in front of the television or surf the web, frankly . . . so that’s what most of us do,
and our desires remain dreams.
Here’s another uncomfortable truth: many things aren’t fun until you’re good at them. Every skill
has what I call a frustration barrier—a period of time in which you’re horribly unskilled, and you’re
painfully aware of that fact. Why start something when you know you’re going to be bad at it?
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to master new skills with less angst? To break through the
frustration barrier quickly, so you can get to the rewarding part? To spend less time slogging through
confusion and doubt, and more time having fun?
Is it possible to acquire new skills less painfully, in a way that requires far less time and effort?
I speak from experience: yes, it’s possible.
This book is about my personal quest to test the art and science of rapid skill acquisition—how to
learn any new skill as quickly as possible. The purpose of this book is to help you acquire new skills
in record time.
In my experience, it takes around twenty hours of practice to break through the frustration barrier:
to go from knowing absolutely nothing about what you’re trying to do to performing noticeably well.
This book is a systematic approach to acquiring new skills as quickly as possible. The method is
universal. It doesn’t matter whether you want to learn a language, write a novel, paint a portrait, start
a business, or fly an airplane. If you invest as little as twenty hours in learning the basics of the skill,
you’ll be surprised at how good you become.
Whatever skill you wish to acquire, this book will help you acquire it in less time and with less
wasted energy. With a bit of focused, strategic effort, you’ll find yourself performing well quickly,
without the fist-pounding frustration.
In this book, we’ll start with the principles of rapid skill acquisition: how to go about acquiring
new skills as quickly as possible. These ideas and practices aren’t complicated, so they won’t take
long to learn.
Then, I’ll explain how to use these principles in the real world by showing you how I acquired the
following six new skills in twenty hours or less each, with no more than ninety minutes of practice
per day.
Developing a personal yoga practice
Writing a web-based computer program
Relearning to touch-type
Exploring the oldest and most complex board game in history
Playing a musical instrument
Windsurfing
I hope that this book encourages you to dust off your old “want to do” list, reexamine it, and
commit to learning something new.
Josh Kaufman
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
For updates about the material in this book, visit http://first20hours.com/updates.
Mantesh
1
A Portrait of the Author as a Learning Junkie
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes
planning my day difficult.
—E. B. WHITE, ESSAYIST AND AUTHOR OF CHARLOTTE’S WEB AND THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
•••
Hi. My name is Josh Kaufman, and I’m a learning addict.
My home and office shelves are piled high with books, tools, and unused equipment of all sorts,
most of which are slowly accumulating dust.
I have a “to learn” list hundreds of items long. My Amazon.com shopping cart currently has 241
items in it—all books I want to read. I can’t walk into a bookstore without leaving with three or four
new books, to be added to the 852 volumes I already own.
Every day, I come up an idea for another project or experiment, which I add to my ever-growing
“someday/maybe” list. Looking at everything I want to learn how to do feels overwhelming, so I don’t
look at the list very often.
I want to learn how to improve my publishing business. I want to learn how to shoot and edit
videos. I want to produce an audio program. I want to learn how to give better seminars and teach
better courses.
I have ideas for a new product, but I don’t know how to build it. I have ideas for new computer
programs, but I don’t know how to create them. I have more potential writing project ideas in my
head than the time and energy to write them.
I want to learn how to draw. I want to learn how to white-water kayak. I want to learn fly fishing. I
want to learn rock climbing. I want to be able to play the guitar, the ukulele, the piano, and the
electric violin.
There are games I’ve been interested in for years, like Go, but I haven’t learned how to play them. I
have games that I already know how to play, like chess, but I’m not very good at them, so they’re not
much fun, and I don’t play them very often.
I like the idea of playing golf, but every game I’ve played turned into a stoic exercise in laughing
off embarrassment. (I usually say I play marathon golf: by the end of eighteen holes, I’ve run a
marathon.)
It seems as though every day I add some new skill to the list of things I want to be able to do, ad
infinitum. So much to learn, so little time.
By nature, I’m a do-it-yourself kind of guy. If something needs to be done, I’d rather give it a go
myself than look for help. Even if someone else could do it faster or better, I’m reluctant to rob
myself of the learning experience.
To complicate matters, Kelsey, my wife, runs her own business, publishing continuing education
courses for yoga teachers. Business is good for both of us, so there’s always a lot to be done.
To make life even more interesting, we welcomed our daughter, Lela, into the world. Lela is nine
months old as I write this.
Before Lela was born, Kelsey and I decided that if we were going to have kids, we wanted to make
raising them ourselves a priority. One of the major reasons I quit my former management-track job at
a Fortune 500 corporation was to have the flexibility to work from home, set my own schedule, and
spend as much time as possible with my family.
Kelsey and I share parenting responsibilities equally. Since we’re a two-business household,
Kelsey works in the morning, while I take care of Lela. In the afternoon, Kelsey takes care of Lela,
and I work until dinnertime. That gives me around twenty-five hours each week to work, plus
whatever time I can snatch while Lela is napping.
After Lela was born, I felt like I barely had enough time to get my work done, let alone acquire
new skills. For a learning addict, it was crazy-making.
I don’t want to give up on learning and growth completely, even with my new responsibilities. I
don’t have very much free time, but I’m willing to invest what I have as wisely as possible.
That’s what prompted my interest in what I call rapid skill acquisition: methods of learning new
skills quickly.
I want to continue to acquire new skills, but I don’t want the process to take forever. I want to pick
up the essentials quickly, so I can make noticeable progress without constantly feeling frustrated.
I’m sure you can relate. How much “free” time do you have each day, after all of your work and
family obligations are complete? Do you feel like you’d need thirty-six or forty-eight hours in a day to
finally sit down and learn something new?
There’s an old cliché: “work smarter, not harder.” As it turns out, the process of skill acquisition is
not really about the raw hours you put in . . . it’s what you put into those hours.
Damn You, Malcolm Gladwell
In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book titled Outliers: The Story of Success. In it, he set about
trying to explain what makes certain people more successful than others.
One of the ideas Gladwell mentions over and over again is what he calls the “10,000 hour rule.”
Based on research conducted by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University, expert-level
performance takes, on average, ten thousand hours of deliberate practice to achieve.
1
Ten thousand hours equals eight hours of deliberate practice every day for approximately three and
a half years, with no breaks, no weekends, and no vacations. Assuming a standard 260 working days
a year with no distractions, that’s a full-time job for almost five years, assuming you spend 100
percent of that time exerting 100 percent of your energy and effort.
In practice, this level of focused attention is extremely taxing. Even world-class performers in
ultracompetitive fields (like music performance and professional sports) can only muster the energy
for approximately three and a half hours of deliberate practice every day. That means it can take a
decade or more to develop a skill to mastery.
In essence, if you want to master a new skill, Dr. Ericsson’s research indicates you’re in for a very
long haul. Being the best in the world at anything, even for a little while, requires years of relentless
practice. If you’re not willing to put in the time and effort, you’ll be overshadowed by those who do.
Outliers shot straight to the top of the nonfiction bestseller lists, and stayed there for three months.
Overnight, the “10,000 hour rule” was everywhere.
As if learning a new skill wasn’t hard enough. Not only do you have to make time for practice . . .
but you now also have to put in ten thousand hours? Most of us count ourselves lucky if we can set
aside a few hours a week. Why bother at all if it takes so long to be good at something?
Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!
Before you give up all hope, consider this.
There’s an element of Dr. Ericsson’s research that’s very easy to overlook: it’s a study of expert-
level performance. If you’re looking to become the next Tiger Woods, you’ll probably need to spend
at least ten thousand hours deliberately and systematically practicing every aspect of golf. Almost
every single professional golfer began playing at a very young age and has been practicing nonstop
for at least seven years. Developing world-class mastery takes time.
On the other hand, what if winning the PGA Tour isn’t your goal? What if you just want to be good
enough at golf that you’re able to play decently, not embarrass yourself, have a good time, and maybe
have a fighting chance to win your local country club tournament?
That’s another matter entirely. World-class mastery may take ten thousand hours of focused effort,
but developing the capacity to perform well enough for your own purposes usually requires far less
of an investment.
That’s not to discount the value of what Ericsson calls “deliberate practice”: intentionally and
systematically practicing in order to improve a skill. Deliberate practice is the core of skill
acquisition. The question is how much deliberate practice is required to reach your goal. Usually, it’s
much less than you think.
Quality, Not Quantity
Embracing the idea of sufficiency is the key to rapid skill acquisition. In this book, we’re going to
discuss developing capacity, not world-class mastery. We’re going to tackle the steep part of the
learning curve and ascend it as quickly as possible.
Leave the ten thousand hours to the pros. We’re going to start with twenty hours of concentrated,
intelligent, focused effort.
We’re shooting for the results we value with a fraction of the effort. You may never win a gold
medal, but you’ll reap the rewards you care about in far less time.
If you ultimately decide to master the skill, you’ll have a better chance of success if you start with
twenty hours of rapid skill acquisition. By knowing what you’re getting into, learning the
fundamentals, practicing intelligently, and developing a practice routine, you’ll make progress more
quickly and consistently, and you’ll achieve expert status in record time.
What Is Rapid Skill Acquisition?
Rapid skill acquisition is a process—a way of breaking down the skill you’re trying to acquire into
the smallest possible parts, identifying which of those parts are most important, then deliberately
practicing those elements first. It’s as simple as that.
Rapid skill acquisition has four major steps:
Deconstructing a skill into the smallest possible subskills;
Learning enough about each subskill to be able to practice intelligently and self-correct during
practice;
Removing physical, mental, and emotional barriers that get in the way of practice;
Practicing the most important subskills for at least twenty hours.
That’s it. Rapid skill acquisition is not rocket science. You simply decide what to practice, figure
out the best way to practice, make time to practice, then practice until you reach your target level of
performance.
There’s no magic to it—just smart, strategic effort invested in something you care about. With a
little preparation, you’ll acquire new skills rapidly, with less effort.
That’s not to say that the results will be instant. The desire for instant gratification is one of the
primary reasons people don’t acquire new skills very quickly.
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