Don’t have 10,000 hours to learn something new?

Posted: August 11, 2025

10,000 hours is to become world class, ie gold medal Olympian. 10,000 hours is five years at a full time job.

No doubt on pursuing continuous improvement as a lifelong endeavor. But along the way let's knock out competent.

Competence takes 20 hours. And knowing that little nugget makes it much more realizable.

You don’t have 10,000 hours to learn something new.

"I am never going to have free time ever again." I wrote that on about month two of being a new parent. I love learning. The more I learn, the more I need to learn. The more books I read, the more books I need to read. And so my conflict came to a head. Where am I going to find the time?

So we’ve all heard that it takes 10,000 hours to acquire a new skill. If you want to be good, 10k hours. That's the same as working a full time job for five years. That's a lot.

But the research that determined that bar of 10,000 hours is based on the goal to become world-class, like a gold medal Olympian.

No doubt pursuing continuous improvement is a lifelong endeavor. But along the way I think i'll knock out competent. And for some things competent is good enough.

H/T to Josh Kaufman for his book "The First 20 Hours" as well as this YouTube video.