Monday, June 3, 2013

How to Learn Anything in 20 Hours


In order to become an expert in performing a certain skill, a person needs to practice at least 10,000 hours. But in order to learn a completely new skill, a person needs only 20 hours (and more:)). Josh Kaufman's talk at TED explains the strategy in detail. To sum it up, this is how you learn a new skill fast (using playing a guitar as an example):
  1. Deconstruct the skill - beak a skill into small part (e.g., to learn to play a guitar, one needs to get a guitar, choose the most common chords, learn to play them)
  2. Learn enough to self-correct - one does not need to read and learn a lot before trying to learn a skill. One needs to learn just enough to see that one makes mistakes and correct those mistakes.
  3. Remove practice barriers - any distractions, mental struggles that stop you from learning.
  4. Practice the skill at least 20 hours.

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