How To Acquire A New Skill In 20 Hours
15/06/16
We spend our entire life learning new skills through our childhood, education, jobs and beyond. Most of us enjoy learning new skills.
However with increasingly busy lifestyles, acquiring new skills can sometimes seem too time consuming and even a reason that prevents us from taking up something new to learn.
For graduates and young professionals seeking employment or Work Integrated Learning placement (internship) opportunities, there may be many new skills they would like to learn.
Perhaps it is time to improve your language skills, learn about a new technology or how to use Xero Accounting software.
What if I was to say that you that you can learn any new skill in 20 hours?
According to Josh Kaufman, author of a bestselling business book, you can acquire any new skill by dedicating 20 hours of focused and deliberate training by following the below 4 steps:
- Deconstruct the skills: Decide exactly what you want to be able to do by the time you are done, and look at the skill and break it down to smaller pieces starting with the most important ones first.
- Learn enough to self-correct: Pick 3-5 resources about what you want to learn, for example books and DVDs. Learn just enough to self-correct. Your learning gets better through noticing your mistakes and then improving on them.
- Remove barriers to practise: Remove all distractions, for example television and internet, to help you to focus and practise.
- Practise for at least 20 hours: Commit to it and stick with the practise. 20 hours is only about 45 minutes a day for about a month. Easy.
Whether you want to develop new skills on a personal or professional level, acquiring a new skill will become easy and possible by following this method.
Josh Kaufman talks about his theory in a TED talk video, The first of 20 hours – how to learn anything, and demonstrates how he himself acquired a new skill by practising for 20 hours!
