This document summarizes Josh Kaufman's talk on how to learn anything. It notes that with only 20 hours of focused deliberate practice, spread over a month of daily 45 minute sessions, one can learn new skills like a language, drawing, or playing guitar. It breaks learning down into four simple steps: 1) deconstruct the skill into smaller pieces, 2) learn just enough to self-correct during practice, 3) remove barriers to practice, and 4) practice for at least 20 hours. While many claim it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, research shows moderate performance can be achieved with much less practice time.

1. Josh Kaufman
on “How to learn anything”
Submitted to
Prof. Sameer Mathur
by
Pankaj Kumar, PGP30262

2. How to
learn
anything

4. Life is too Busy
I do not have free time

5. Excuses

6. Its not exactly true
but it FEELS true

7. How long does it take to acquire a new Skill

8. 10,000 Hours
many books and websites says
Its equivalent to a full time job for 5 years
But that’s not True
This is required for Expert Level Performance

9. What research says
By much lower (than 10,000 hours) practice time a
moderate level of performance can be achieved
Performance
Curve

10. • Early level of skill acquisition
is really fast
• As we spend more and more
time lessor value addition

11. So how long it take starting from grossly
incompetent to being reasonably good
20 Hours

12. If you put 20 hours of focus deliberate
practice
45 minutes a day for a month
you can learn any of these skills
• Want to learn a language ?
• Want to learn how to draw ?
• Want to learn playing guitar ?

13. Four simple steps to
Rapid skill acquisition

14. 1.Deconstruct the skill
Most of the things which we see as skills are
actually are a bundles of smaller skills

15. Look into the skill and break into the smaller and
smaller pieces

16. 2. Learn enough to self correct
Get 2 to 3 different resources from to learn
Don’t use these resources as a way to procrastinate the practice

17. Learn just enough that you can practice and self correct yourself
Learning become noticing when you make mistake and getting better

18. 3. Remove barriers to practice

19. 4. Practice at least 20 hours

20. Major barrier to learning
isn’t intellectual..
Its Emotional

21. References
• Ted talk by Josh Kaufman.
• Photos from Google images.

23. Created by Pankaj Kumar, IIM Lucknow
as part of an MBA course "Personal Branding“
www.mbaskills.in
Taught by Prof. Sameer Mathur
IIM, Lucknow
Marketing Professor ( 2013- current )
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marketing Professor 2009-2013
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ph.D. and M.S. (Marketing) 2003-2009