Research indicates that a person requires at least 10,000 hours of practice before developing a true expertise in a given activity. This pattern appears to be applicable to just about any activity, including sports, games, music... hell, maybe even our jobs.
Ten thousand hours is the equivalent of one hour per day for more than 27 years. Or, it's 3 hours per day for 9 years. And even if you dedicate an entire 40-hour workweek to an activity, it would still take you nearly 5 years to become a master.
That's why it's bullshit that Luke Skywalker basically became a Jedi in what appeared to be the space of one week.
Anyway, I suspect there may be some variance due to innate ability -- a person who has a natural talent for something may accomplish in, say, 8,000 hours what the average person might take 10,000 hours to accomplish -- but overall the implications are staggering. Essentially, this means that most of us do not excel in what we do. I've tried to look in the mirror at this, using my own "interests" that I listed in my blog profile. The results confirm it. I'm a dabbler:
Films: If you believe watching a larger number of films helps you develop some sort of "expertise" in film-watching and critical assessment of films, then I have a long way to go. On Netflix, I've rated more than 2,000 films. Assuming 2 hours per movie, I've watched 4,000 hours of films (not counting repeat viewings) -- and that's just watching films; I've spent comparatively little time actually analyzing them. Nowhere near being a real film critic.
Poker: This is tougher to estimate, so I whipped out the calculator. Adding up my current poker night (4 hrs x 26 games x 6 yrs = 624 hours), my high school lunchroom game (.6 hrs x 5 days per week x 35 wks x 2 yrs = 210), random games throughout college, law school, business school, work, and Vegas trips (3 hrs x 10 games/year x 14 yrs = 420), and finally, online play (3 hrs x 52 wks x 4 yrs = 624), my total is about 1,878 hours. Huh. Not sure how I keep winning. ;)
Baseball: I'm not sure I want to touch this. Watching baseball? Yeah, I might be an expert. Playing? I think the results would be too embarrassing to contemplate.
Wine: Sadly, I haven't spent 10,000 hours tasting wine, no matter how liberally you count the three years I spent in law school.
Politics: Since that's my job, I suppose you could count my number of work hours. Counting all the extra campaign hours, I've racked up about 9,000. Only problem is that "politics" is too broad and includes too many separate activities to assume that I'm anywhere near becoming an expert in any one of those activities.
Unless you're accounting for the fact that, more than anything else, the nature of the job lends itself to developing an expertise in dealing with idiocy. If that's the case, I have a fucking Ph.D.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Wow, I guess this explains why so many athletes who make it to the pros start playing their sport as a toddler!
As far as film analysis: I think quality in this case is more important that quantity. If you spend your movie-viewing time watching movies like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," you're short-changing yourself in the "developing analytical skills" department. By the way, I just watched "Walk the Line" a few nights ago and enjoyed it.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! :)
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view
Post a Comment