Hacker News Reader

I know we have skepticism over the 10k hours of practice theory, but I still kinda like it, at least in broad strokes.

And if there's going to be another "10x" level, these are probably them. 100k hours of effortful practice, at 2500 hours per year = 40 years. Crazy.

View on HN

James Altucher had a great spin on it. He says that maybe it takes 10,000 hours to master something, but with only 1000 hours, you can get pretty good. And that only takes a year of fitting it in for 20 hours a week. Even 100 hours of practice at any particular skill will make you better at it than most people, and you can do that in like 2 hours a week for 6 months. If you feel like mastering it after that, go for it, but if you frame it as "I can have a new skill after about 6 months of practice" instead of "I can be a master in 10 years of super hard work", you're a lot more likely to try it.

10k hours playing basketball isn't going to make you a professional basketball player, but I would imagine 10k hours painting, writing, or doing many other professional endeavors will certainly help you to earn a livable wage if not excel in your field.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com