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 acquire a new skill, you must practice it in context. Learning enhances practice, but it doesn’t replace it. If performance matters, learning alone is never enough.

There’s also a huge difference between skill acquisition and training. Training, in this context, means improving a skill you’ve already acquired through repetition.

question. It requires significant periods of sustained, focused concentration. It requires creativity, flexibility, and the freedom to set your own standard of success.

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.

In academic literature, this general process is called the “three-stage model” of skill acquisition,4 and it applies to both physical and mental skills. The three stages are 1. Cognitive (Early) Stage—understanding what you’re trying to do, researching, thinking about the process, and breaking the skill into manageable parts. 2. Associative (Intermediate) Stage—practicing the task, noticing environmental feedback, and adjusting your approach based on that feedback. 3. Autonomous (Late) Stage—performing the skill effectively and efficiently without thinking about it or paying unnecessary attention to the process.

Ten Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition I realized that becoming a master of karate was not about learning 4,000 moves but about doing just a handful of moves 4,000 times. —CHET HOLMES, AUTHOR OF THE ULTIMATE SALES MACHINE

Here are the ten major principles of rapid skill acquisition: 1. Choose a lovable project. 2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time. 3. Define your target performance level. 4. Deconstruct the skill into subskills. 5. Obtain critical tools. 6. Eliminate barriers to practice. 7. Make dedicated time for practice. 8. Create fast feedback loops. 9. Practice by the clock in short bursts. 10. Emphasize quantity and speed.

1. Choose a lovable project.

“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.”

2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time.

One of the easiest mistakes to make when acquiring new skills is attempting to acquire too many skills at the same time.

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.

establishing what he calls a “someday/maybe” list: a list of things you may want to explore sometime in the future, but that aren’t important enough to focus on right now.

3. Define your target performance level. A target performance level is a simple sentence that defines what “good enough” looks like. How well would you like to be able to perform the skill you’re acquiring?

Your target performance level is a brief statement of what your desired level of skill looks like.

4. Deconstruct the skill into subskills. Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. Once you’ve identified a skill to focus on, the next step is to deconstruct it—to break it down into the smallest possible parts.

5. Obtain critical tools. Most skills have prerequisites to practice and performance.

Taking a moment to identify critical tools before you start practicing saves precious time. By ensuring you have the resources you need before you begin, you maximize your practice time.

6. Eliminate barriers to practice.

There are many things that can get in the way of practice, which makes it much more difficult to acquire any skill. These barriers can be anything from Significant prepractice effort. Such as misplacing your tools, not acquiring the correct tools before practicing, or skipping setup requirements. Intermittent resource availability. Such as using borrowed equipment or relying on a resource that has limited operating hours. Environmental distraction...

7. Make dedicated time for practice. The time you spend acquiring a new skill must come from somewhere.

Here’s the truth: “finding” time is a myth.

skills. I recommend making time for at least ninety minutes of practice each day by cutting low-value activities as much as possible. I also recommend precommitting to completing at least twenty hours of practice.

8. Create fast feedback loops.

“Fast feedback” means getting accurate information about how well you’re performing as quickly as possible. The longer it takes to get accurate feedback, the longer it will take to acquire the skill.

9. Practice by the clock in short bursts. Our minds are built to learn—to notice patterns, simulate potential courses of action, and figure out what’s probably going to happen next.

The more periods of sustained practice you complete, the faster your skill acquisition. Set aside time for three to five practice sessions a day, and you’ll see major progress in a very short period.

Instead of trying to be perfect, focus on practicing as much as you can as quickly as you can, while maintaining “good enough” form.

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.

Well Begun Is Half Done Sometimes you’ll want to give up the guitar. You’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded. —JIMI HENDRIX, RENOWNED ELECTRIC-GUITAR PLAYER

Whenever you decide to learn something new, just go though the checklist and decide which principles apply to your particular project. Here’s the checklist for rapid skill acquisition: 1. Choose a lovable project. 2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time. 3. Define your target performance level. 4. Deconstruct the skill into subskills. 5. Obtain critical tools. 6. Eliminate barriers to practice. 7. Make dedicated time for practice. 8. Create fast feedback loops. 9. Practice by the clock in short bursts. 10. Emphasize quantity and speed.

In that spirit, here are the ten major principles of effective learning: 1. Research the skill and related topics. 2. Jump in over your head. 3. Identify mental models and mental hooks. 4. Imagine the opposite of what you want. 5. Talk to practitioners to set expectations. 6. Eliminate distractions in your environment. 7. Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization. 8. Create scaffolds and checklists. 9. Make and test predictions. 10. Honor your biology.

1. Research the skill and related topics. Spend twenty minutes searching the web, browsing a bookstore, or scanning the stacks at your local library for books and resources related to the skill. The goal is to identify at least three books, instructional DVDs, courses, or other resources that appear to be connected to the skill you’re trying to acquire.

Before you panic, understand that you don’t have to spend hours memorizing these resources. On the contrary: time spent reading or w...

2. Jump in over your head. Some of your early research will contain concepts, techniques, and ideas you don’t understand. Often, something will appear particularly important, but you’ll have no idea what it means. You’ll read words you don’t recognize, and see practitioners doing things you can’t fathom. Don’t panic. Your initial confusion is completely normal. In fact, it’s great. Move toward the confusion.

3. Identify mental models and mental hooks. As you conduct your research, you’ll naturally begin to notice patterns: ideas and techniques that come up over and over again. These concepts are called mental models, and they’re very important.

4. Imagine the opposite of what you want. A counterintuitive way to gain insight into a new skill is to contemplate disaster, not perfection. What if you did everything wrong? What if you got the worst possible outcome?

This is a problem-solving technique called inversion, and it’s helpful in learning the essentials of almost anything.

5. Talk to practitioners to set expectations. Early learning helps you set appropriate expectations: What does reasonable performance for a beginner actually look like?

6. Eliminate distractions in your environment. Distractions are enemy number one of rapid skill acquisition. Distractions kill focused practice, and lack of focused practice leads to slow (or nonexistent) skill acquisition.

The most significant sources of distraction come in two forms: electronic and biological.

7. Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization.

To make use of material you’ve learned while practicing, you have to be able to recall related ideas quickly. Many skills require at least some level of memorization. Here’s the catch: your memory isn’t perfect. Whenever you learn something new, you’ll probably forget it unless you review the concept within a certain period of time. This repetition reinforces the idea, and helps your brain consolidate it into long-term memory.

8. Create scaffolds and checklists.

Many skills involve some sort of routine: setting up, preparing, maintaining, putting away, et cetera. Creating a simple system is the best way to ensure these important elements happen with as little additional effort as possible.

Checklists are handy for remembering things that must be done eve...

Scaffolds are structures that ensure you approach the skill the same way every time.

9. Make and test predictions. Part of the skill acquisition process involves experimentation: trying new things to see if they work.

Getting into the habit of making and testing predictions will help you acquire skills more rapidly. It’s a variation on the scientific method, with four key elements: Observations—what are you currently observing? Knowns—what do you know about the topic already? Hypotheses—what do you think will improve your performance? Tests—what are you going to try next?