You Can Become "Moderately Good" at Any Skill in Just 40 Days
The key lies in a combination of specificity, atomization, and diligence.
You’ve heard it before: it takes ten thousand hours to master a subject. That’s twenty hours of practice every week for ten years. And sure, by the time you’ve put your attention on something for that long, you’re going to be a true master at it. But what about when you just want to get kinda-sort “okay” at something?
My wife and I like to joke that we’re Unenlightened Generalists because we strive to know a little bit about as many things as possible. Life’s about learning and creation, so why not learn as much as possible!?
The good news is: anyone can join us in our pursuit of becoming reasonably good at any task, and it takes just a fraction of the 10,000 hours required for mastery.
- You need to set a specific goal.
This is the biggest mistake that new generalists make. Don’t set nebulous goals; be specific.
- Don’t set yourself the goal of learning Tai Chi, set yourself the goal of perfecting the first quarter of the Chen-style form.
- Don’t say, “I want to learn to play guitar!” Instead, focus on learning your top two favorite songs on guitar.
