Learn Any New Skill in 20 Hours With 4 Simple Steps

With just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice, you can go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach for acquiring new skills quickly with a small amount of practice each day. He shows how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers, creating a realistic framework for drastically cutting the time it takes to acquire any skill.

In the video above, he reveals the four steps to learning any new skill, fast.

The four steps in Kaufman's method are:

1. Deconstruct the skill: Break down the parts and find the most important things to practice first. If you were learning to play a musical instrument, for example, knowing just a few chords gives you access to tons of songs. If you want to learn a new language, learn the most common 2,000 words and you'll have 80% text coverage.
2. Self-correct: Use reference materials to learn enough that you know when you make a mistake so you can correct yourself.
3. Remove barriers to learning: Identify and remove anything that distracts you from focusing on the skill you want to learn.
4. Practice at least 20 hours.

If you are interested in learning more you can read Kaufman’s practitioner's guide to rapid skill acquisition, “The First 20 Hours, How to Learn Anything…Fast!”