How to Learn Anything in 20 Hours

 ‘Bhaiyya,’ said Rinku strumming Rakesh’s guitar tunelessly in the canteen. ‘I’d like to play the guitar. Do you think I can learn in one year?’

‘Even I’d like to learn drawing,’ said Rahul. ‘I wonder if I have the talent for it.’

‘You don’t need a whole year,’ said Rakesh. ‘According to a TED talk by Josh Kaufman titled ‘The first 20 hours - how to learn anything’, anyone can become reasonably good at anything new in 20 hours. Do watch it.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Rinku. ‘We know nothing about the guitar or drawing. Zero.’

‘Josh says our biggest barrier to learning anything new is our fear that we’ll look stupid – it’s nothing to do with talent,’ said Rakesh. ‘So we don’t even attempt to learn. But if you learn in a proper manner you’ll be reasonably good in 20 hours.’

‘How do we learn in 20 hours bhaiyya?’ asked Rahul. ‘What’s the proper way?’

‘Josh gives four steps,’ said Rakesh. ‘First, deconstruct your skill. Which means you break up the skill into smaller skills and figure the important things to learn. For example, he says that by playing four key chords out of hundreds of chords, one can play any pop song reasonably well on the ukelele. Second, learn enough to self-correct. Which means you must know when you’re making a mistake and also know how to correct it. Getting a good coach, watching videos or reading books helps here. Third, remove all barriers to practice, all distractions. 20 hours translates to 45 minutes of practice a day for one month so commit to your practice diligently. And fourth, put in your 20 hours.’

‘But bhaiyya,’ asked Rinku. ‘Won’t learning enough to self-correct require a lot of knowledge?’

‘Not really,’ said Rakesh. ‘These 20 hours are aimed at making you above average, not an expert. We’ll discuss expert level next week. But for this level you don’t need complete knowledge of music or drawing. A good coach can teach you the basics, the important parts, point out common mistakes and how to correct them. With a little practice you can see a marked improvement in your skill. Enough to surprise you.’

‘Wow, is it that simple bhaiyya?’ asked Rahul.

‘Rahul, when you learned to cycle or swim, how long did it take to become reasonably good? If you see the learning curve, you can see that in the beginning you are understandably slow, then comes steep acceleration where you learn pretty fast in a short time and become pretty good. Then it plateaus. That’s how it works.’

‘I got it bhaiyya,’ said Rinku. ‘Get ready for my guitar performance next month.’

‘Calls for an advance celebration with chai and samosa,’ piped in Rahul.

Pro tip: To get reasonably good at anything, all you need is 20 hours. Follow the process - deconstruct the skill, learn enough to self-correct, remove practice barriers - and you’ll be surprised at how good you can become.

 

Exercise: Pick the activity you want to become reasonably good at in class now. Look for someone who can teach you how to deconstruct and how to self-correct. Sign up and practice for 20 hours.

Share before and after stories. 

 

 

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