Tuesday, January 6, 2009

10 000 hours

10 000 hours has generally shown up as the magic number to become world class in just about anything. As best as I can tell this is a biological number, this just happens to be the amount of time your brain typically takes to master a skill.

Thinking about that really does change my perception of how I should spend time. That is about 20 hours a week for a decade! Three hours a day every single day working on improving a single skill. Really, you can only hope to do that much if you cut out a great deal in your life. By trying to be good at too many things you ruin your chances of being truly great at any one thing.

Now to find something that I can get obsessive enough about to spend three hours a day on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

on an unrelated note, I think you would like this website: http://www.stickk.com/

It's a pretty smart idea. You set a goal and then make a legally binding contract with your money on the line in order to achieve it. So if you fail to meet your goal, your money will go wherever you designated.

So instead of signing up for a PE class you have to go to, you could make a contract that if you don't work out X times a week you have to pay $50 to a political cause you hate. I bet you would get in those workouts.