Sadly, the problem is that the older you does not get the same out of 10k hours of deliberate practice than the younger you.<p>Let's take chess: 10k hours of deliberate practice in your teen years will make you a master level player (and possibly near GM caliber if you think Polgar experiment was not a fluke).<p>There are no known instances of someone starting to play chess after age of 30 and getting near GM. Conversely, I've known people who retired in their 40s and dedicated themselves to chess and could not achieve more than a 50-100 point gain.<p>I would love to be proven wrong, but I suspect the story is the same with piano, violin and programming.<p>Your 10k hours at age 40 will not get you near anywhere the same return than 10k hours at age 10-16.<p>I would love to see some references to people achieving mastery in some field past the age of 40 starting from scratch.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity</a> is supposed to show that it is possible to get good at a later age, but I am very skeptical.
I thought the "10k" rule had been discredited.<p><a href="http://allaboutwork.org/2012/11/21/malcolm-gladwells-10000-hour-rule-doesnt-add-up/" rel="nofollow">http://allaboutwork.org/2012/11/21/malcolm-gladwells-10000-h...</a>
Looks like we hugged this site to death: I now get a "500 Internal Server Error". Here's the google cache link:
<a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnowincolour.com%2F2013%2F04%2Fhow-many-10k-hours-do-you-have-left%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnowincolour.com%2F2013%2F04%2Fhow-many-10k-hours-do-you-have-left%2F" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...</a>
This is a cool brain hack in that it uses math to convince you that you're not too old to become a master at something.<p>One issue I have with the 10,000 hour rule in general is this: there are approximately 2,088 hours in a work-year not counting overtime. To achieve mastery in your profession would then take less than 5 years. Most professions don't consider someone an expert 5 years into their careers. So does that mean
a) you're not really improving that much in those 5 years
b) there are more conditions to the 10,000 hour rule
c) the 10,000 hour rule is flawed
or d) the evaluation of one's expertise is flawed?<p>Another issue I have with the 10,000 hour rule is the idea of competence and sufficient experience. At what level of experience (in this case, hours) are you competent enough to achieve your goal? If programming, at what level can you create something that solves a given problem. If business, at what level can you successfully run a startup, etc.<p>So if the target changes to "enough experience to achieve a specific goal" then I'd argue one has much more time available to him/her than what this math suggests.
Why do you guys buy into this 10k hours bullshit?<p>The 10k hours claim is utter nonsense on the most basic level. How exactly is "one skill" defined? There is no such thing as "one skill." Every skill, field, whatever is a highly complex amalgam of countless sub-skills. How do you determine the extent of the "one skill" that you're devoting to?<p>Let's say you want to master 18th century history, defined as achieving a skill/knowledge level of X in that field. Does this take 10k hours? Why not 20k? Why not 5k? How can anyone assume that just because 18th century history has been defined as a particular "skill" that reaching some skill level X will take 10k hours?<p>If you instead choose to master early 18th century history from 1700-1730 so that you know the years 1700-1730 just as well as the 1700-1800 specialist, does it now take you only 3K hours instead of 10K?<p>Does any of this math make any sense at all?<p>Since the concept of "one skill" is utterly absurd nonsense that is completely undefinable, and the concept of "mastery" is equally undefinable and meaningless, this whole 10k meme is nothing but marketing bullshit of the kind that Gladwell mass produces in his shitty vapid books.<p>Gladwell is a hack of the highest order. He has never said anything meaningful. This 10k hour meme is just another marketing turd he shit out to mystify and flatter the dumb middle classes who read poppy trash like Gladwell so they can call themselves literate.<p>Fucking disgrace that people take this seriously
A graph since no calculator was provided.
Zoom out a bit to get the right scale.<p><a href="http://bit.ly/11wIBQo" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/11wIBQo</a>
Couple flaws I see here: first, I'm not convinced that 10k hours is a reasonable estimate given how vastly different any given discipline is from another. Some disciplines allow for fast iteration and thus more practice in a shorter amount of time, for one thing.<p>Second and more important, we need to remember that <i>none</i> of us learn in a vacuum. How much faster did you pick up programming because you already understood the concept of grammar, and had taken a logic or debate class in high school? Even in wildly different fields of study, there are dots we connect, analogies that we construct, and skills that we posses and bring to the table. It is reasonable to assume that we gain some efficiency in learning new skills, by virtue of the masteries we already possess.
How could anyone actually sustain such a rate of learning? Two hours every weekday, plus an additional sixteen hours every weekend for 48 weeks every year?<p>Life creeps up, and seeps into the cracks so tenuously occupied by free time. Mastering but a single skill is impressive.
Somewhat relevant, "Teach Yourself Programming in 10 years" by Peter Norvig:<p><a href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/21-days.html</a>