The 10,000 hour rule
- Philip Brophy
- Mar 27
- 3 min read
Mastering your skill • 2 min read
Research from the University of Chicago examined the critical factors that contribute to talent, looking at the childhoods of 120 elite performers. The results showed that: there were no early indicators that could have predicted the virtuosos’ success; and that there was no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine.
The only innate differences that turned out to be significant — and related mostly to sports — were height and body size.
Introduction
While we’re led to believe that genius and talent are innate, not developed over time, research tells us differently — that real expertise can be produced from hours of accumulated practice.
This week, we’ll look at how efficiently structured practice can help us to be proficient in any field of expertise.
10,000-rule…a myth debunked?
Ever heard of the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to gain “mastery” of specific activity?
This might sound excessive, as in…who has time to log in that kind of practice every day?
And what is “mastery” anyway?
10,000 hours might be essential for mastering a fine-motor skill like becoming an Etoile dancer, but what if this vast number is mentally blocking us from achieving solid expertise in a more accessible task?
More to the point, do we actually have to “master” every skill we take up?
Research suggests that perhaps a real priority should be to practice enough to get the results we’re looking for — with 20 hours of deliberate practice providing a timeframe that’s long enough to experience dramatic improvements in any skill, but not so long that it feels overwhelming to get started in the first place.
Efficient practice
Our brains are optimised to pick up skills very quickly and through committed practice and persistence, we can begin to see large increases in skill levels within relatively short periods of time. We can approach this by:
Precommitment. This means mapping out 20 hours of practice into a schedule over — let’s say — three weeks. When you have an end point in sight, it will make it a lot easier to persist, instead of just quitting when the going gets tough.
Identifying a target performance level. When we envisage how good we want to be, we can easily find specific practice methods that will help us get there in the fastest way possible.
Deconstructing. This means breaking your programme up into the smaller parts, focusing on the core concepts and subskills. Some will always be more important than others, so it’s better to start by practising aspects that will give us the greatest increases in performance.
Key takeaways
10,000 hours is all well and good for mastery level but recent research points to the 20-hour method — a time frame that is accessible to most and long enough to achieve noticeable progression.
Commit to a schedule and deconstruct your learning programme. By focusing your early practice on the most critical parts of a skill, you’ll see a dramatic increase in your performance after a few hours of practice.
“Mastery” comes with intensive practice, with research showing that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in cognitive based fields.
Think big, act small
Commit to efficient practice using the 20-hour method to see increases in your skill within a short timeframe.
This requires mapping out your plan, identifying your target performance level, and focusing on the core concepts and subskills.
Content sources
Harvard Business Review, 2011, Wilson, H.J., A Fast Track to 10,000 Hours of Practice’
Harvard Business Review, 2007, Anders Ericsson, K. et al. ‘The Making of an Expert’
Forbes, 2013, Dan Schawbel, ‘Josh Kaufman: It Takes 20 Hours Not 10,000 Hours To Learn A Skill’
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