Thread by @davevsamuel

Learning whatever your curiosity suggests: it's doable!

Malcolm Gladwell says something different in his "Outliers: The story of success"... but there was a bug in that book

🧵👇

1.n

The thesis of Gladwell was:

- you need as much as 10.000 hours - booom!

just "Practice a lot, practice well, and you will reach the top of your field"

2.n

The bug:

the 10.000 hour rule came out of studies of expert-level performance:

. professional athlete
. world class musicians
. chess grand masters
...

Professor K. Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, is the rule originator.

3.n

So, the original message was:
-it takes 10k hours to reach the top of an ultra competitive field-

but very soon it became:
-it takes 10k hours to become good at something-

and then:
-it takes 10k hours to learn something-

4.n

But, if the goal is not:
-expertise at high level-

but simply:
-starting something from being grossly incompetent to being reasonably good-

then a short period of time is enough... but how much?

5.n

It's a matter of just 20 hours of deliberate practice!

Indeed the early level of improvement is really fast: with a little bit of practice you get really good, really quick.

Then at a certain level you reach a plateau, and the subsequent games become much harder to get 👇

6.n

There is a framework to practice efficiently, in order to invest those 20 hours in the most effective way:

. deconstruct the skill
. learn enough to self correct
. remove barriers to practice

let's go deeper...

7.n

. deconstruct the skill

Look into the skill and break it down into smaller pieces.

And if you practice the most important things first, you'll be able to improve your performance in the least amount of time possible.

8.n

. learn enough to self correct

Learn through books or courses just enough that you can actually practice and self correct as you practice.

The learning becomes a way of getting better at noticing when you're making a mistake and then doing something a little different.

9.n

. remove barriers to practice

No distractions, cell phone, television, internet.

All of those things that get in the way of you actually sitting down and doing a focused work.

10.n

As it turns out, the main barrier to learn something new (a language, how to cook, how to draw or whatever) is not the time...

- it's emotional -

In summary:

. it's possible to learn whatever your curiosity suggests

. Gladwell said it would take 10k h but this rule apply to competitive fields

. indeed you just need 20h of practice:
1. deconstruct the skill
2. learn enough to self correct
3. remove barriers to practice

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