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3.22 AVERAGE
3.22 AVERAGE
I picked up this book because I've been trying to learn a lot of new skills lately. Cooking, Italian, and even yoga so I thought this might be the perfect book to help me learn skills quickly.
It was ... to a point.
The first section of the book goes into the science of skill acquisition, what it requires, and the steps to achieve it. One of the biggest things I pulled from this was that while it is said 10,000 hours equals a mastery level, you don't need to hit a mastery level in order to feel like you've achieved something with that skill. Josh focuses a lot on what success means to you and even gives some definitions for the six skills he tries to acquire in this book.
Unfortunately, for me, this was the only useful part of the book. While I was interested in the yoga section because I too am trying to learn about yoga, the rest of it seemed useless for me to read. Instead of going into the methods that Josh used to learn things in a general sense, he dials down and gets really specific. At that point, it almost reads like a journal where he's document every single step in his process to reach either his goal or 20-hours, whichever comes first. (Hint: It's usually the former.) This might be great for people that want to learn how to code in Ruby, play Go, teach themselves how to touch type, or even windsurf but I myself am not interested in any of those things. So reading those sections were kind of difficult for me because it immediately lost my interest.
The premise of this book is good and if nothing else, reading the first section about skill acquisition is worth picking it up, but I'll admit it's only about 1/6th of the book.
2 stars.
It was ... to a point.
The first section of the book goes into the science of skill acquisition, what it requires, and the steps to achieve it. One of the biggest things I pulled from this was that while it is said 10,000 hours equals a mastery level, you don't need to hit a mastery level in order to feel like you've achieved something with that skill. Josh focuses a lot on what success means to you and even gives some definitions for the six skills he tries to acquire in this book.
Unfortunately, for me, this was the only useful part of the book. While I was interested in the yoga section because I too am trying to learn about yoga, the rest of it seemed useless for me to read. Instead of going into the methods that Josh used to learn things in a general sense, he dials down and gets really specific. At that point, it almost reads like a journal where he's document every single step in his process to reach either his goal or 20-hours, whichever comes first. (Hint: It's usually the former.) This might be great for people that want to learn how to code in Ruby, play Go, teach themselves how to touch type, or even windsurf but I myself am not interested in any of those things. So reading those sections were kind of difficult for me because it immediately lost my interest.
The premise of this book is good and if nothing else, reading the first section about skill acquisition is worth picking it up, but I'll admit it's only about 1/6th of the book.
2 stars.
First few pages are good, that talks about the rule of 20 hours & how to accomplish. If you already read books of David Allen, Chris Bailey etc, then we only have to know that the first 20 hours practice, related to motor skills, is all one requires to become good enough although Josh Kaufman shares his experience of launching a website using Ruby Sinatra & Go (non motor skills). Remaining 65-80% of the book is about sharing his experience of learning Colemak keyboard, Wind surfing, Ruby Sinatra, Yoga, Go, Ukulele. But yes, there's certainly something to learn from these experiences on how to approach when learning anything new
informative
medium-paced
I've been waiting for a long time to read this book and it turned out to be as inspiring as I was hoping it would be. Learning something new can take about 20 hours, as long as you do some research before starting and you don't have the expectation of mastering that skill when the 20 hours are gone. The idea is to try and learn something you're interested in and you can do this in a methodical and organized way, so in the end you don't just waste your time.
I liked the first few chapters where the author presents the principles of rapid skill acquisition. I thought they make sense and it's a good place to start thinking about the learning process. However, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, the main block of the book consists of skills the author learned in this way: yoga, programming, touch typing, Go, playing the ukulele and windsurfing. Seeing the method in action is a very good exercise, especially if the reader can relate to the subject. What I didn't like was the amount of technical detail and explanation that was put into each skill. These details were not relevant for this discussion, because anyone who wants to pick up the skill will use books and sources strictly concerned with that particular skill. It felt like reading the journal of each experience, where the learner was using writing as a way to memorize and check their own progress. Of course, readers can skip the parts they are not interested in, but I was never very comfortable with doing that...
Nonetheless, investing 20 hours to try a new thing is a good idea and it might give someone the right motivation to keep practicing, with an end in mind. One of the things that I found to be most helpful was about deliberate practice. The author was trying to learn touch typing with a different keyboard layout. At first, his practice was methodical and intentional, to learn the place of each key and to get used to typing faster. Because he had to use the same layout for his regular work, he tried to rely on the fact that he's using it either way for work and he should be learning at the same time. What he discovered was that using the keyboard layout on a daily basis, without deliberate practice to improve, got him nowhere near to reaching his goal. This also reminded me about a TED Talk by Eduardo Briceño about the learning zone versus performance zone. Just doing something without actually working on getting better at it will not yield any results.
I liked the first few chapters where the author presents the principles of rapid skill acquisition. I thought they make sense and it's a good place to start thinking about the learning process. However, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, the main block of the book consists of skills the author learned in this way: yoga, programming, touch typing, Go, playing the ukulele and windsurfing. Seeing the method in action is a very good exercise, especially if the reader can relate to the subject. What I didn't like was the amount of technical detail and explanation that was put into each skill. These details were not relevant for this discussion, because anyone who wants to pick up the skill will use books and sources strictly concerned with that particular skill. It felt like reading the journal of each experience, where the learner was using writing as a way to memorize and check their own progress. Of course, readers can skip the parts they are not interested in, but I was never very comfortable with doing that...
Nonetheless, investing 20 hours to try a new thing is a good idea and it might give someone the right motivation to keep practicing, with an end in mind. One of the things that I found to be most helpful was about deliberate practice. The author was trying to learn touch typing with a different keyboard layout. At first, his practice was methodical and intentional, to learn the place of each key and to get used to typing faster. Because he had to use the same layout for his regular work, he tried to rely on the fact that he's using it either way for work and he should be learning at the same time. What he discovered was that using the keyboard layout on a daily basis, without deliberate practice to improve, got him nowhere near to reaching his goal. This also reminded me about a TED Talk by Eduardo Briceño about the learning zone versus performance zone. Just doing something without actually working on getting better at it will not yield any results.
This book is about rapid skill acquisition, in which author Josh Kaufman outlines methods and techniques to learn new skills in 20 hours. In this regard, the book is not about developing expert level performance in 20 hours, but about learning a new skill and breaking through what the author calls the “frustration barrier”.
In the first 3 chapters, the author presents the key ideas of the book. The first chapter introduces the process of rapid skill acquisition explaining the differences between skill acquisition and learning, training, and education. Some interesting concepts are covered as well such as mindset (growth vs fixed), Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, and the neurophysiology of skill acquisition (including neuroplasticity).
The second and third chapters present 2 sets of principles; The 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition (Chapter 2), and The 10 Principles of Effective Learning (Chapter 3). In these 2 chapters the author explains interesting concepts and techniques such as the “power law of practice”, the “learning curve”, immersion, mental models, mental hooks, inversion, spaced repetition, reinforcement learning, scaffolds, and checklists.
In chapters 4 to 9 the author attempts to put theory into practice by applying the strategies outlined in the first 3 chapters into learning 6 new skills; yoga, programming, touch typing, the game of Go, Ukulele, and windsurfing. But rather than expanding on the methods and concepts covered earlier and illustrating "how" to implement them, in these case studies the author details in great lengths the “what” of the skills he is learning, such as the ancient history of yoga, the history of the keyboard, and so on. Therefore, I ended up skimming through most of the examples as I wasn't getting much from the content.
Overall, the first 3 chapters constitute the meat of the book making it a worthwhile read.
In the first 3 chapters, the author presents the key ideas of the book. The first chapter introduces the process of rapid skill acquisition explaining the differences between skill acquisition and learning, training, and education. Some interesting concepts are covered as well such as mindset (growth vs fixed), Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, and the neurophysiology of skill acquisition (including neuroplasticity).
The second and third chapters present 2 sets of principles; The 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition (Chapter 2), and The 10 Principles of Effective Learning (Chapter 3). In these 2 chapters the author explains interesting concepts and techniques such as the “power law of practice”, the “learning curve”, immersion, mental models, mental hooks, inversion, spaced repetition, reinforcement learning, scaffolds, and checklists.
In chapters 4 to 9 the author attempts to put theory into practice by applying the strategies outlined in the first 3 chapters into learning 6 new skills; yoga, programming, touch typing, the game of Go, Ukulele, and windsurfing. But rather than expanding on the methods and concepts covered earlier and illustrating "how" to implement them, in these case studies the author details in great lengths the “what” of the skills he is learning, such as the ancient history of yoga, the history of the keyboard, and so on. Therefore, I ended up skimming through most of the examples as I wasn't getting much from the content.
Overall, the first 3 chapters constitute the meat of the book making it a worthwhile read.
Enkel eerste hoofdstuk gaat over hoe een nieuwe skill leren. Is plat maar veelbelovend. De rest van het boek zou beter passen onder de titel 'How I, John Kaufman, learned yoga, programming, windsurfing,...'. deze hoofdstukken maken bijna geen link meer met de principes van het eerste hoofdstuk.
Wasn’t what I expected. Was just him talking about him.
informative
medium-paced
You basically get all the content after the first few chapters, the rest are just anecdotes.
Actually fairly typical advice on learning - I got it on special in the audible sale. Well presented, but when we went into 6 different times the author had applied the tools, and they each took a chapter, I really lost interest.
Good read. However, I had to skip over the explanation of the skills he acquired. Am not interested in acquiring those particular skills. And the approach he gives toward achieving them seems vague. Like telling me to "read books"....that can be an uphill task to some people.