Rapidly acquire new skills: THE FIRST 20 HOURS by Josh Kaufman

Summary

In 'The First 20 Hours,' Josh Kaufman challenges the 10,000-hour myth, proposing that proficiency in any skill can be achieved much faster with a systematic approach. He offers a three-step blueprint: set a specific target, learn just enough to self-correct, and practice with struggle followed by sleep. Kaufman's personal experiment with typing illustrates the power of deliberate practice and the role of sleep in skill consolidation. This method promises rapid skill development, encouraging learners to embrace challenges and make the most of their first 20 hours of focused practice.

Takeaways

• 😀 The '10,000-hour rule' for mastering a skill is not necessary if the goal is to achieve competency for personal enjoyment or value.
• 🎯 The author, Josh Kaufman, suggests that with a systematic approach, noticeable proficiency in a skill can be achieved in just 20 hours.
• 🤔 To start, imagine a disaster scenario where lacking the skill would be detrimental, which helps in identifying the sub-skills and order needed to work on them.
• 🏆 Having a clear target performance in mind can reduce feelings of overwhelm and provide a roadmap for skill development.
• 📚 It's important to study just enough to know how to self-correct during practice, rather than spending too much time on theory.
• 📈 The 'monitor hypothesis' by Stephen Krashen emphasizes the value of being able to self-correct while practicing a skill.
• 🚀 Practice should be prioritized over study, with the goal of understanding and correcting mistakes as you go.
• 💤 Sleep plays a crucial role in consolidating and encoding what is learned during the day, enhancing skill development.
• 🔄 The combination of short bursts of struggle and sleep is a powerful formula for rapid improvement in learning a new skill.
• ⌛️ Josh Kaufman's personal experiment with learning a new typing method demonstrates the effectiveness of the 20-hour commitment.
• 📈 Intense practice followed by sleep leads to significant improvements, as the brain upgrades abilities during rest.
• 🕒 The recommendation is to practice for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night for a month to accumulate 20 hours of deliberate practice.

Q & A

What is the main premise of Josh Kaufman's book 'The First 20 Hours'?

The main premise is that you can attain a noticeable level of proficiency in any skill within just 20 hours of deliberate practice, provided you approach skill development systematically.

How does the '10,000 hours rule' differ from Kaufman's approach?

The '10,000 hours rule' suggests that mastery of a skill requires extensive practice, while Kaufman argues that you can become proficient enough to enjoy and use a skill effectively in just 20 hours.

What is the first step in Kaufman’s blueprint for rapid skill development?

The first step is to 'imagine disaster,' where you visualize a scenario where not having the skill causes a problem. This helps identify the key sub-skills you need to learn and prioritize.

Why does Kaufman recommend knowing 'just enough' before practicing a new skill?

Kaufman advises learning just enough to self-correct during practice. This minimizes time spent on theoretical study and maximizes practical application, which is crucial for rapid improvement.

How does sleep contribute to skill development, according to Kaufman?

Sleep helps consolidate and encode what you’ve learned during practice. Practicing intensely before sleep enhances this process, leading to noticeable improvements after a night's rest.

What did Kaufman learn from his experience of switching to a new typing method?

Kaufman learned that even though switching to the Colemak keyboard layout was initially frustrating, committing to 20 hours of practice led to significant improvements, eventually making the new method feel natural and efficient.

Why does Kaufman emphasize the importance of short bursts of practice combined with sleep?

Short bursts of intense practice followed by sleep lead to faster skill acquisition because the brain consolidates and strengthens what was practiced, especially when there’s a struggle involved.

What role do coaches or mentors play in the skill development process?

Coaches or mentors can help by providing immediate feedback, pointing out mistakes, and offering guidance on how to correct them, which accelerates the learning process.

How can visualization help in breaking down a skill into manageable parts?

Visualization of a potential disaster scenario helps in identifying the most critical sub-skills to focus on, making the overall skill development more manageable and targeted.

What is the recommended practice routine for effective skill development within 20 hours?

Kaufman recommends practicing the desired skill for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night for a month. This routine, combined with sleep, helps solidify the new skill effectively.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Rapid Skill Acquisition: The 20-Hour Rule

The first paragraph introduces the concept from Josh Kaufman's book 'The First 20 Hours', which challenges the traditional belief that mastering a skill requires 10,000 hours. Kaufman proposes that with a systematic approach, one can achieve a level of competency in just 20 hours. The paragraph outlines a three-part blueprint for rapid skill development: imagining a disaster scenario to identify key sub-skills, knowing just enough to self-correct, and the importance of struggle and sleep for learning. The author emphasizes the need for a game plan to avoid feeling overwhelmed and to efficiently progress within the 20-hour timeframe.

05:02

🔄 Overcoming Frustration: The Power of Practice and Sleep

The second paragraph delves into the personal experience of Josh Kaufman as he attempted to learn a new typing method, the colemak layout, within 20 hours. It highlights the importance of breaking up practice into short, intense bursts followed by sleep to consolidate learning. Kaufman's experiment showed significant improvement after the 20-hour mark, demonstrating the effectiveness of deliberate practice and the role of sleep in skill development. The paragraph concludes with a recommendation to practice for 20 minutes in the morning and evening for a month, accumulating 20 hours of deliberate practice, which can lead to noticeable proficiency in a new skill.

Keywords

💡10,000 hours rule

The '10,000 hours rule' is a concept popularized by Malcolm Gladwell that suggests it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. In the video, this rule is contrasted with the author's proposition that a much shorter time can be sufficient to reach a level of competency in a skill.

💡Skill development

Skill development refers to the process of acquiring and improving abilities in a particular area. The video emphasizes that skill development can be accelerated through a systematic approach, allowing individuals to become proficient much faster than traditionally believed.

💡Proficiency

Proficiency is the state of being competent or highly skilled in a particular area. The video's main theme revolves around achieving noticeable proficiency in a skill within just 20 hours of focused practice, rather than the 10,000 hours often cited.

💡Systematic approach

A systematic approach implies a methodical and organized method of doing something. In the context of the video, it refers to the structured method Josh Kaufman suggests for rapidly acquiring skills, which involves setting clear goals, learning just enough to self-correct, and incorporating struggle and sleep.

💡Imagining disaster

Imagining disaster is a technique mentioned in the video where one envisions a situation where lacking a skill would lead to disastrous consequences. This helps in identifying the sub-skills and the order in which they should be learned to avoid such a disaster.

💡Sub-skills

Sub-skills are smaller, more manageable components of a larger skill set. The video script uses the example of learning Italian to illustrate how breaking down the overall skill into sub-skills like introducing oneself, knowing nouns and verbs, and structuring questions can make the learning process more effective.

💡Monitor hypothesis

The monitor hypothesis, as mentioned in the video, is a theory by Stephen Krashen which posits that learning is most effective when it allows for self-monitoring and self-correction during practice. It is used to justify the importance of knowing just enough to practice a skill correctly.

💡Self-correction

Self-correction is the ability to identify and amend one's own mistakes during the learning process. The video emphasizes the importance of learning enough about a skill to be able to self-correct while practicing, which is crucial for rapid skill acquisition.

💡Struggle and sleep

Struggle and sleep is a concept introduced by Josh Kaufman where struggling with a skill during practice sessions, followed by sleep, allows for better consolidation of learning. The video script describes how this combination leads to rapid improvement in skill development.

💡Colemak layout

The Colemak layout is an alternative keyboard layout designed to reduce finger movement and improve typing efficiency. In the video, it is used as an example of a skill that Josh Kaufman learned in 20 hours, demonstrating the effectiveness of his proposed method.

💡Deliberate practice

Deliberate practice refers to a focused and structured approach to learning that involves the intention to improve performance. The video suggests that by practicing a skill for 40 minutes a day, one can accumulate 20 hours of deliberate practice and achieve a high level of proficiency within a month.

Highlights

It takes only 20 hours of focused practice to reach noticeable proficiency in any skill if approached systematically.

Imagining a disaster scenario helps break down the skill into manageable sub-skills needed to avoid failure.

The sole purpose of studying a skill before practicing is to know how to self-correct during practice.

Josh Kaufman suggests learning just enough to self-correct before diving into practice.

Using real-time feedback tools or mentors can significantly shorten study time and enhance self-correction.

Breaking up practice sessions into short bursts separated by sleep can dramatically improve skill development.

Struggling during practice is essential for rapid skill improvement, as it triggers the brain to consolidate learning during sleep.

Practicing in the morning and evening increases the effectiveness of learning, as sleep helps encode new skills.

Josh Kaufman was able to master a new typing method (Colemak) in just 22 hours by applying this method.

The brain upgrades abilities during sleep only if intense struggle occurred during practice.

Rapid improvement formula: Short bursts of struggle plus sleep.

Practicing 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night for a month can lead to surprising competency.

Systematic practice with real-time feedback can help you achieve proficiency faster in any skill.

Josh Kaufman’s 20-hour method emphasizes the importance of practice over extensive study.

This method can be applied to any skill, from playing an instrument to learning a language, or even typing.

Transcripts

I recently read the book the first 20

hours by author Josh Kaufman you may

have heard that it takes 10,000 hours to

master a skill but what if you don't

want to master a skill what if you just

want to be good enough to enjoy using

the skill and get value out of it like

playing a few songs on your guitar

well according to over 90 years of

scientific research attaining a level of

competency with any skill can happen

much much quicker than you may think

if you approach skill development in a

systematic way you can climb up the

learning curve and reach a point of

noticeable proficiency in just 20 hours

author Josh Kaufman says you would be

astounded at how good you could get at

any skill in just 20 hours however if

you approach the skill development

process without the proper game plan

you're unlikely to get anywhere in 20

hours here is a three-part blueprint to

rapidly develop any skill and experience

surprising competency after just 20

hours

first imagine disaster attempting to

develop a new skill can be overwhelming

the faster that you can imagine a

specific target performance with your

new skill the faster you'll reduce that

feeling of overwhelm an excellent way to

imagine your target performance is to

picture yourself in a situation using

that skill within the next few weeks

once you have that situation in mind

imagine the situation being a complete

disaster let's say you've always wanted

to speak Italian the most effective way

to break down the task of speaking

Italian into something more manageable

is to picture yourself in the next few

weeks going to Italy and going to a

small town where no one speaks English

you don't have access to data so you

can't use your cell phone you are

completely lost and you need to find

your way around town so you ask a local

for directions as you try to explain

what you want you use hand gestures and

you stumble to find the right words to

mitigate this disaster you'd first need

to be able to introduce yourself then

you need to know how to say the Italian

words for the different places you want

to go nouns like hotel restaurant or

museum it would then be helpful to know

which verbs to use with those nouns

verbs like to go to want and to

and to help the local understand what

you want you would need to learn how to

structure a question by using

interrogatives like where when and how

by imagining a situation where not

having a desired skill makes that

situation a disaster you can come up

with a list of sub skills that you need

to work on and the order in which you

need to work on them the second part of

the blueprint is know just enough now

that you know what to do you'll need to

know how to do it at this stage in the

skill development process people spend

too much time studying a skill and too

little time practicing a skill if you

were learning how to toss a football

it's not very productive to study the

physics of throwing a football for five

hours before playing catch in the

backyard the sole purpose of studying a

skill before doing it is to be

knowledgeable enough to know if you're

doing something wrong and how to fix it

the professor of linguistics at the

University of Southern California

stephen krashen

calls this the monitor hypothesis it

states that learning before practicing

is only valuable if what you're learning

allows you to plan edit and correct

yourself while practicing when learning

to toss a football it would be helpful

to spend a few minutes watching a

collection of highly rated YouTube

videos or flipping through a stack of

top rated football instructional books

once you've found a consensus from three

or more sources on what a proper

football tossing technique should look

like and feel like then it's time to go

outside and start practicing the moment

you understand how to execute a sub

skill and how to self-correct drop the

books turn off the videos and go

practice as you practice you'll come up

with more questions to study and you can

go back to the resources looking for

specific answers if you want to shorten

your study time use coaches or mentors

to point out exactly what you're doing

wrong when possible use software

programs like use ition an app that

gives you real-time feedback as you play

the guitar to help you self correct

while practicing to make the most of

your first 20 hours learn just enough to

self-correct the third part of the rapid

skill development blueprint is struggle

and sleep author Josh Kaufman wanted to

see if he could learn a skill in 20

hours

I would overwrite a skill he had been

using for most of his life so he set out

to learn a new typing method he wanted

to go from the standard QWERTY keyboard

layout to a more efficient colemak

layout

his research revealed that typing with a

colemak configuration reduced finger

movement improved typing accuracy and

reduced his chances of getting carpal

tunnel so Josh made the switch and he

was frustrated immediately his typing

speed went from 60 words per minute down

to 5

Josh ed it felt like he was missing a

part of his brain while he typed he used

his delete keys so often that he thought

he might wear it out he desperately

wanted to quit but he vowed to commit 20

hours to developing the new skill so he

pushed on surprisingly after the 14 hour

mark he was able to type 40 words per

minute with perfect accuracy at the 20

hour mark it felt like his fingers were

effortlessly making words appear on the

screen he decided to push on and after

22 hours he was able to type 60 words

per minute flawlessly he now looks back

at the old way of typing and wondered

why he typed so inefficiently for so

long that 20-hour commitment allowed him

to push through the frustration and

develop a skill that helped benefit from

for the rest of his life Josh was able

to develop a new typing skill because of

how he systematically broke up his 20

hours of practice by breaking up long

practice sessions into short bursts

separated by periods of sleep you can

dramatically improve your ability to

develop a skill scientists don't know

much about sleep but they know that

sleep consolidates and encodes what we

learned during the day in the book Josh

reflects on how sleep played an

important part in developing his typing

skill he says my first practice session

was horrible I couldn't get anything

right made mistakes constantly and

barely progressed past the characters on

the home row after a full night's sleep

when I sat down in front of the computer

I noticed that I was making fewer

mistakes sleep had consolidated what I'd

learned the night before science reveals

that developing motor skills is most

effective if we practice those motor

skills within four hours of going to bed

Josh also found a direct correlation

between how intensely practice and how

much he improved the following day if he

spent a few hours casually typing in the

new configuration he made zero

improvements in typing speed and

accuracy

it turns out the brain only bothers to

upgrade your abilities during sleep if

you struggled during the day therefore

the equation for rapid improvement is

short bursts of struggle plus sleep the

more intervals of struggle and sleep you

experience the faster you'll improve to

make the most of your first 20 hours I

recommend practicing your desired skill

for 20 minutes in the morning and 20

minutes at night for an entire month the

morning will give you an opportunity to

practice without distraction and

practicing in the evening will increase

the odds of consolidating that skill

while you sleep if you practice

intensely and systematically for 40

minutes a day at the end of the month

you will accumulate a twenty hours of

deliberate practice and be surprisingly

good at whatever skill you want that was

the core message that I gathered from

the first twenty hours there are many

more examples in the book of how to

rapidly improve your skills I highly

recommend it if you like a one-page PDF

summary of insights that I gathered from

this book just click the link below and

I'd be happy a mailing to you if you

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thanks for watching and I hope you have

a productive day