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3.22 AVERAGE
3.22 AVERAGE
Useful book, but would've made more sense as a series of longer blog posts. The core of the book (Kaufman's method for skill acquisition) takes up less than 20% of the book, most of it being case studies showing how he applied his method to various skills. I did, in fact, read the whole book, but I don't think I had to. Understanding how he applied the method to a single skill would've been useful, but much of the case study chapters were very specific play-by-play. While potentially interesting, this wasn't necessary to show the reader the application of the skills. This is ESPECIALLY visible in the chapter on web programming, where BASH terminal commands are typed out with little to no explanation. For most readers, going through that chapter will be tedious and not particularly useful, despite the author claiming that attempting to read the commands would be useful. Overall, I think the book deserves a 2/5, but the method Kaufman proposes deserves a 4/5, so as such, a 3/5 it is.
Es un libro extraño, pero sirve para aprender cualquier de las cosas que explica. Es una guía práctica, no te lo leas "por si acaso" o "para tener una idea", pues el autor muestra su proceso de aprendizaje, no te da simplemente nociones para que aprendas. Sí que da algo de información sobre cómo aprender nuevas habilidades y los hábitos que debes adquirir, y en ese sentido sí que sirve de ayuda de forma general.
This sort of book is always tricky, because to do one well, it has to sound convincingly attainable and if you succeed at that too well you run the risk of your readers turning on you. "It's just common sense!" they bemoan, even though they picked up the book to begin with because their own common sense hadn't brought them the answers they were looking for. That's the rub, so I go into this extending some grace.
I'm not sure there are a ton of groundbreaking revelations but I do think that it does what it sets out to accomplish--giving people who want to try something but are daunted, the permission to say yes to trying. And honestly, I think he's also right. As a Queen Dabbler (the author of a book I previously reviewed would have called me a "Startist") this connects with my real life experience. Sure we may not become experts at a whole new thing in 20 hours of practice but you can perform functionally at a surprising number of things if you attack it in a smart way and have passion. Even in 20 hours. I'm only taking off points for the programming chapter which got too granular to keep my attention even a little bit. Some skimming happened.
Finally, if you take nothing else away from this book it's what Josh learned for himself... learn the ukulele. His justification for taking this on as one of his challenges mirrored many of mine for taking it on as my pandemic hobby. Even as someone who considered myself musically hopeless, even an oaf like myself can play competently enough for my storytimes, and just as Josh himself was promised, if you learn, you'll never be bored. That may be one of the bonus lessons from this...sometimes learning a new thing, even if it's only to amuse yourself, is justification enough for learning it.
I'm not sure there are a ton of groundbreaking revelations but I do think that it does what it sets out to accomplish--giving people who want to try something but are daunted, the permission to say yes to trying. And honestly, I think he's also right. As a Queen Dabbler (the author of a book I previously reviewed would have called me a "Startist") this connects with my real life experience. Sure we may not become experts at a whole new thing in 20 hours of practice but you can perform functionally at a surprising number of things if you attack it in a smart way and have passion. Even in 20 hours. I'm only taking off points for the programming chapter which got too granular to keep my attention even a little bit. Some skimming happened.
Finally, if you take nothing else away from this book it's what Josh learned for himself... learn the ukulele. His justification for taking this on as one of his challenges mirrored many of mine for taking it on as my pandemic hobby. Even as someone who considered myself musically hopeless, even an oaf like myself can play competently enough for my storytimes, and just as Josh himself was promised, if you learn, you'll never be bored. That may be one of the bonus lessons from this...sometimes learning a new thing, even if it's only to amuse yourself, is justification enough for learning it.
Kauffman takes the reader through the basic process of skill acquisition and where many people make mistakes that cost them time and motivation. The general rule is to find something you can obsess over, break it into clear goals, and carve out time to practice it.
Nothing particularly revolutionary, but he does a good job of explaining his method across a variety of skills- windsurfing, typing, ukelele, and go.
The book was entertaining enough and written clearly. I suppose my next task should be to stop researching how to learn and actually pick something so I can get started. Maybe I'll give Go a shot.
Nothing particularly revolutionary, but he does a good job of explaining his method across a variety of skills- windsurfing, typing, ukelele, and go.
The book was entertaining enough and written clearly. I suppose my next task should be to stop researching how to learn and actually pick something so I can get started. Maybe I'll give Go a shot.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
It gives ideas to how you can add skills to your life in just 20 hours.
Tiene momentos brillantes, especialmente en el capítulo 3, pero pierde algo de su impulso inicial a medida que avanza. Ofrece consejos valiosos para aprender nuevas habilidades de manera eficiente, aunque podría haber sido más consistente en su entrega de consejos prácticos. En general, el libro tiene momentos destacados, pero también puede parecer una pérdida de tiempo en algunas partes.
not bad with a few nuggets of information that I thought was worthwhile. just felt the book was dragged out and the author could have said as much in half the time.
Josh Kaufman is the guy you want to find on the seat next to you in a plane trip. Kaufman is a charismatic writer who feels good about himself and can spread that feeling to you, and how you feel about yourself.
He might just be naturally high energy but you can hear the coffee in his delivery, like, he wants to convey this all to you quickly, so he can get back to what he was doing. That sort of brevity had me hanging on every sentence.
He's a story teller: these six episodes could all be on The Moth. He spends a month going from clueless-to-decent in a bunch of seemingly random stuff. (It turns out that he finds the whole world interesting.)
Chapter 5 I liked most: removing the labels from all the keys of his keyboard and learning to type with Colemak by the end of the month (instead of QWERTY).
Second best was the final chapter, Chapter 8: Ukelele. "Definitely giving that a skip", we all say to ourselves.
And yet, after I first avoided that chapter, I later consumed it in one sitting. Until last week, I found myself standing at the reference desk of Madison Public Library, asking them if they had loaner ukeleles.
I forgot to say, this is a how-to book: Kaufman lays out the way to learn anything right up front. He gives some coaching true-isms. And then finishes off with brain science that was only discovered during our lifetimes. He's done with that by Page 35. The whole rest of the book are these entertaining (like This American Life) stories.
The First 20 Hours would be a great book for:
1. someone who needs to learn constantly, for their job (which is any knowledge worker)
2. someone who is about to retire
3. someone who says they love to learn things
4. someone who is a teacher
He might just be naturally high energy but you can hear the coffee in his delivery, like, he wants to convey this all to you quickly, so he can get back to what he was doing. That sort of brevity had me hanging on every sentence.
He's a story teller: these six episodes could all be on The Moth. He spends a month going from clueless-to-decent in a bunch of seemingly random stuff. (It turns out that he finds the whole world interesting.)
Chapter 5 I liked most: removing the labels from all the keys of his keyboard and learning to type with Colemak by the end of the month (instead of QWERTY).
Second best was the final chapter, Chapter 8: Ukelele. "Definitely giving that a skip", we all say to ourselves.
And yet, after I first avoided that chapter, I later consumed it in one sitting. Until last week, I found myself standing at the reference desk of Madison Public Library, asking them if they had loaner ukeleles.
I forgot to say, this is a how-to book: Kaufman lays out the way to learn anything right up front. He gives some coaching true-isms. And then finishes off with brain science that was only discovered during our lifetimes. He's done with that by Page 35. The whole rest of the book are these entertaining (like This American Life) stories.
The First 20 Hours would be a great book for:
1. someone who needs to learn constantly, for their job (which is any knowledge worker)
2. someone who is about to retire
3. someone who says they love to learn things
4. someone who is a teacher
I am not totally on board with Kaufman's assertion that you can become competent in any discipline within 20 hours. Some of the sample projects he outlines are questionable. For example, take the section on programming. Kaufman makes his living on the computer and has experience building websites. I would argue that he has to incorporate all of that previous experience into that chapter which would put him well over that 20 hour threshold. He does fail to account for prior experience in at least 3 of his 6 pet projects.
That being said, there is a lot of useful information in this book. He provides a process and I am willing to buy in just enough to give it a go. He does a good job of boiling down his research and makes even the history of the QWERTY keyboard seem interesting. I particularly liked the sections on Go (the world's oldest strategic board game) and the ukulele (I immediately went and watched the Axis of Awesome video, super funny).
All in all, it is a well-written work chock full of good information.
That being said, there is a lot of useful information in this book. He provides a process and I am willing to buy in just enough to give it a go. He does a good job of boiling down his research and makes even the history of the QWERTY keyboard seem interesting. I particularly liked the sections on Go (the world's oldest strategic board game) and the ukulele (I immediately went and watched the Axis of Awesome video, super funny).
All in all, it is a well-written work chock full of good information.