The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast!

by Josh Kaufman

Rapid skill acquisition has four major steps: Deciding exactly what you want to be able to do. Deconstructing a skill into the smallest possible subskills; Learning enough about each subskill to be able to practice intelligently and self-correct during practice; Removing physical, mental, and emotional barriers that get in the way of practice; Practicing the most important subskills for at least twenty hours.

If you want to get good at anything where real-life performance matters, you have to actually practice that skill in context. Study, by itself, is never enough.

“The best thing that can happen to a human being is to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.”

Pick one, and only one, new skill you wish to acquire. Put all of your spare focus and energy into acquiring that skill, and place other skills on temporary hold.

“finding” time is a myth.

Skill is the result of deliberate, consistent practice, and in early-stage practice, quantity and speed trump absolute quality. The faster and more often you practice, the more rapidly you’ll acquire the skill.

Provided you’re working on a lovable problem or project, the more confused you are at the outset, the more internal pressure you’ll feel to figure things out, and the faster you’ll learn.