Sharpe's Opinion
Tuesday, 18th Nov, 2008
Becoming a master takes at least 10,000 hours
Excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’, printed in The Guardian, suggests that it takes at least 10,000 hours of work to become excellent at something – be it playing the violin, playing sports or programming computers. I would argue it goes for writing, too – and that I’m a long way short of my 10,000 hours
It turns out practice really does make perfect. Whoever would have thought.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
I should think that Daniel Levitin feels pretty pissed off at Malcolm Glawell getting all this coverage about ’10,000 hours to become an expert’, when levitin had already written about it in exactly the same way two years ago. And I guess Dr Anders Ericsson at Florida State must also be bemused, as they both got that story from his research and published papers on the subject. Shows the power of marketing and the motivation to make money anyway you can I guess.
Anyway I like the idea that an expert spends that much time to develop their skill – but it doesn’t do much for my confidence in politicians, and a whole lot of managers I’ve met over the years.
Chris Downing
November 28, 2008 at 11:07 am