10 000h to mastery, Pareto and TV

[dachs]

Oh my God! ;)

So I just figured out that most people could master a skill every year and a half if they just stopped watching TV and practice the skill instead. How?

Well there is this idea that one needs 10 000 hours of practice in order to master a skill. And that's like really master it, mess with the world class pros. And even if that's not 100% true and you think that you will play in the NBA after 10 000 hours of basketball training even though you're just 1,30 tall, you would still be pretty good at it, even if you are that tiny.

However, there is another funny "law" out there: Paretos principle. It says that you can get 80% of the results with just 20% of the effort. So if that's true as well, you could be kind of a world class kick ass master if you practice only 2 000 hours ;)

And here comes the bummer: People watch 223 minutes of TV every single day on average (or that's what the statistics say for 2010 in Germany). That means that those people could kind of master a skill every year and a half if they just stopped watching TV and practiced that skill instead. So how awesome is that?

So, I just decided that I will learn a new skill now. Any suggestions?

[matchewed]

Couple of caveats in this generalized concept.

1) The mastery is with intentional practice. The individual is looking at what they are doing and correcting mistakes. They are practicing for perfection. You can be capable of practicing something incorrectly for 10k hours and still suck at it.

2) The pareto principle applied to this is something well known in the skill/learning side of things. You get most of your gains when you start a thing; this is true almost regardless of the thing. So given this the 2000 hours will not make you a master, just much better than the place you were. It's a relative sort of thing.

That being said...

What are you interested in? What questions have burned in your head? What information/skills would you need to answer them?

[Bob W]

Duolingo.   I believe you could be relatively fluent in less than a year.   

[PKFFW]

Not to be a party pooper but.....

Paretos Principle does not actually state "you can get 80% of the result from 20% of the effort".

It states that "80% of your results will generally come from 20% of your efforts".

The difference is subtle but very important in this particular case.  Taking 2000 hours worth of practice as the benchmark, the first is incorrectly stating Paretos Principle to claim you could reach 80% mastery from that 2,000 hours practice.  The second is saying that whatever level you reach from that 2,000 hours worth of practice, will come from 20% of the effort expended during that 2,000 hours.

Having said all that, if you devote 2,000 hours of dedicated practice to something you will very likely reach a pretty darn good level, if not 80% of mastery.  It must be said too, reaching even a "pretty darn good level" at something is a whole lot better than being 2,000 hours better at watching tv.

I agree with Bob W, 2,000 hours of language practice would get you well above conversational fluency level.  I'd also suggest Kung Fu as being totally awesome for many reasons and 2,000 hours of training would see you well on the way to a black belt or higher. :)

[dachs]

Thanks for your answers. Well a language would be cool, I'm already doing that. I train martial arts (but no Kung-Fu), but it's really difficult to do that for 3 hours every day ;)

I figured that people at my Dojo get from zero to black belt (1. Dan) in about five to seven years. With 5 days of training per week for an hour and a half that would fit quite well (about 2 000 hours in 5 years). However, I think most people don't train that often.

Another skill that came to my mind is cooking. That's something one will do anyways so why not try to become better actively.

By the way, here is one guy who tries this 10 000h rule with golfing. Let's see how it will turn out ;) http://thedanplan.com

[Chris22]

I think the TV-watching statistics also fail to account for how passive TV-watching is as an activity and how likely it is you're doing something else in the mean time.  I mean, it's possible that people are spending 3.7 hours a day in rapt attention watching the TV, but I know at my house, we're almost never at more than a 50% level of focus.  It's always playing with the kid or dog, surfing the net, making/cleaning up dinner, getting ready for bed, etc etc etc and the TV is just on in the background.  The only time I ever sit down and focus 90%+ of my attention on the TV is during the occasional movie or the 4th quarter of a playoff NFL game. 

Compare that with "developing a skill" which is going to require 100% of your attention for the same time period. 

[dachs]

Well, not necessarily. I mean you can also talk to people or do other stuff while you're cooking at least. Cooking also involves some waiting time.