How to learn quickly? – a new approach to an old question.

or another useful technique in the world that is moving at crazy speeds

How to learn quickly?

Title of this book got me puzzled “The First 20 Hours. How to Learn Anything… Fast!” by Josh Kaufman. It is this “anything” that I got particularly curious about. How to learn quickly? My experience was telling me that humans are certainly capable of learning new skills. Most of us have learned to drive a car, to swim, to ski, to bike, to play musical instrument, a new language, etc. My experience was also telling me that learning a new skill usually takes considerable time and persistence both to learn and to master.

Many years ago, being a student, I attempted to learn to play a guitar. Spent about six months and stopped, did not get anywhere. At some point tried to learn to eskimo turn a kayak, and also failed. I knew that if I would have really pushed myself, I would have eventually succeeded. But, for one reason or another, I did not push myself and my learning failed. I also knew that, in many cases, pushing myself would not have been enjoyable and would often be embarrassing. Furthermore, acquiring a new skill would would normally take many months to achieve a reasonable level. Why learning needs to be a pain?

Does learning need to be hard?

Malcolm Gladwell in his “Outliers: The Story of Success” talks about 10 000 hours of continuous practice to master a new craft. 10 000 hours means practicing 8 hours a day for 3.5 years, without taking any vacation breaks or weekends. If practicing (only) 4 hours per day, one will reach 10 000 hours in 7 years. Again, no weekends and no vacations. Does it each learning experience need to be that hard?

In the world of rapid change and information abundance, knowledge is becoming obsolete fast. Learning new skills and relearning old ones is crucial. Do I have 10 000 hours to for each new skill. Very unlikely. To learn anything in 20 hours?? Seemed unrealistic. So much to learn and so little time! So I got on reading the book.

My first lesson was the following. While 10 000 hours may be necessary to achieve world mastery, a much shorter period of focused and structured learning is usually sufficient to reach reasonable level in pretty much any new skill one decides to acquire. In the majority of situations we are not seeking world mastery. All we are seeking is reasonable level of performance, ability to apply what we have learned and no public embarrassment.

What is rapid skill acquisition?

How to learn quickly? Rapid skill acquisition presents an – almost common sense – methodology that helps make learning faster and fun.

There are ten principles that constitute rapid skill acquisition. They are: Lovable project. One skill at a time. Target performance level. Deconstruction. Critical tools. Barriers to practice. Make time. Fast feedback loops. Short bursts. Quantity and speed.

Let’s take the ten principles one by one.

Lovable project.

It only makes sense to start learning what you would love to learn, right? This is your lovable project. Lovable project criteria gives you your internal motivation to allocate time and effort.

One skill at a time.

Time is precious and we all only have 24 hours in a day. So take one skill at a time to learn. If you take two or more, you will not be able to allow enough time and nothing will get accomplished.

Target performance level.

Crucial to set a target performance level for yourself to achieve. For example, if you plan to learn touch-typing, reaching 60 words per minute would be a reasonable target. If you plan to learn to swim, swimming two laps of a 50-meter swimming pool would make sense as a target performance level.

Deconstruction.

Decompose what you are trying to learn into simple mini skills. Learn each mini skill separately and then combine. For example, learning to brew good coffee would consist of learning about different sorts of coffee, learning various types of brewing techniques, learning about various types of roasting, etc.

Critical tools.

Acquire necessary tools to enable your new skill. For example, if you would like to learn how to run a half marathon, you will likely need right running shoes for the distance and for type of terrain.

Barriers to practice.

Eliminate barriers to practice. For example, let your loved ones know that you are practicing a new skill. And that it would be really great that they do not disturb you for the next 30 minutes (a day).

Make time.

In our busy lives time is made, not found. If you wait for extra time to show up at your doorstep – “one day when I have time” – this one day will never arrive. So make time to practice.

Fast feedback loops.

Establish fast feedback loops to quickly understand what goes wrong and how to correct it. Best example is learning computer programming. When your program crashes, you instantly know that something needs to be corrected.

Short bursts.

Practice in short bursts, rest and repeat. Our brains need time to internalise new skills. For many skills, especially motor skills, practicing just before going to bed is the best approach.

Quantity and speed.

Make time and practice deliberately. Deliberate practice tells your brain to create these new neuron connections. Practising at leisure takes much longer to achieve desired level of performance, as there is no built in feedback loop. Increase speed as you progress, to reach your target performance level.

What are the risks to rapid skill acquisition?

From my point of view, there are three common enemies to rapid skill acquisition. They are fear, lack of time and complexity.

Fear.

Fear is probably the most common barrier of all. We all fear that we will look miserable to ourselves and to the public when we are learning a new skill, right? We will certainly fall many times when we learn to skate board. At first, we will not understand native speakers when we learn a new language. We will lose game after game in chess, if we do not know how to play chess.

I think, applying deconstruction principle and having a lovable project, should help beat the fear of failing. If you really want to learn your new skill and you take time to decompose it into several smaller and more simple pieces, each mini skill will be much more simple to get to a reasonable level without looking completely miserable at start.

Another approach is to accept your fear. When kids learn to walk or to eat with a spoon, do they fear? Not at all! They just do it. And right they are! Most kids learn very fast just by practicing and failing, practicing and failing.

Lack of time.

Lack of time is another common barrier. Let’s be realistic. If there is no time to practice today, it will not miraculously appear tomorrow. Time is made, not found. Common approach would be to eliminate or reduce time wasters, such as, time spent on social networks, for example. And there will suddenly be a lot of time for this new skill you have always wanted to learn.

Take a look at my Miracle Morning post. This could be yet another solution to help find extra time.

Task complexity.

Barrier of task complexity is probably my favourite one. I have failed numerous times exactly to task complexity and my attempts to learn many details at the same time. Task complexity tells our brains to procrastinate. When our brain is faced with a new problem and it does not see a quick way out, our usual decision is to postpone, i.e. procrastinate.

You can easily attack complexity with task decomposition, one skill at a time approach, deliberate practice and creating fast feedback loops.

Are 20 hours really enough?

It appears that 20 hours of initial research and focused deliberate practice are largely sufficient to acquire a new skill to a reasonable level.

There is no chance to become a world master after your first 20 hours. At the same time, you will have good understanding of your new skill. After your first 20 hours of practice, you will be clear on what to do next. You will understand, whether you would like to continue learning. Furthermore, you will be performing on a reasonable level not to be ashamed to use your new skill in public. And you will be able to make an educated call to stop, if what you have learned did not meet your expectations.

Josh Kaufman gives multiple examples of new skills that he has acquired himself by utilizing the above approach. From computer programming to playing Go game, to windsurfing. These examples and his time spent on learning these new skills from scratch, sound reasonable to me.

What’s next?

Next, I have already created a list of skills that I would love to learn, starting today! We all know that tomorrow never comes, so the best time to start is now. Equipped with this new framework, I am ready to try.

How about you? Would love to hear your views and experiences!

Here is Amazon.com link to The First 20 hours.

Originally published on my personal blog @First Day Of The Rest Of My Life