Josh Kaufman

Josh Kaufman, bestselling author of The Personal MBA, is back with his new book, The First Twenty Hours, to teach readers how to learn anything... fast! 'Lots of books promise to change your life. This one actually will' -Seth Godin Pick up any new skill in just 20 hours... Want to learn to paint, play the piano, launch a business, fly a plane? Then pick up this book and set aside twenty hours to go from knowing nothing to performing like a pro. That's it. Josh Kaufman, author of international bestseller The Personal MBA, has developed this brilliant approach to mastering anything fast. You'll learn how to: • Focus energy on acquiring key skill sets • Eliminate obstacles and discover critical tools • Create rapid feedback loops • Work against the clock to get better fast With examples ranging from writing a web program to learning an instrument to picking up windsurfing, Kaufman shows how to break complexity into simple tasks, make the very best of your limited time and solve unexpected problems. In The First 20 Hours you'll learn how to acquire any skill in record time - and have a lot of fun along the way. 'After reading this, you'll be ready to take on any number of skills and make progress on that big project you've been putting off for years' Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup

How to Learn Anything ... Fast

The First 20 Hours

Forget the 10,000 hour rule. What if it is possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What is on your list? What is holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills, time you do not have and effort you cannot spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? In this book the author offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition: how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible by showing how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers.

How to Learn Anything ... Fast!

Julien Sobczak

Start fast to have fun as soon as possible and never stop learning.

Based on the author's experience, "it takes around twenty hours of practice to break through the frustration barrier: to go from knowing absolutely nothing about what you're trying to do to performing noticeably well." "The First 20 Hours" explains how to efficiently overcome this barrier. You will not master any skills in 20 hours but you'll have a better chance of success if you start with twenty hours of rapid skill acquisition.

Indeed, learning a skill is a long journey with two milestones: when you end the frustration barrier (= start enjoying the practice) and when you master the skill (= escape the rules). This book focuses exclusively on the first part while many books focus on the second part, like the excellent "Peak" by Anders Ericsson.

The author introduces himself and the various techniques in the first chapters. The remaining chapters (the bulk of the book) illustrate the author's experience trying to master six completely different skills: yoga, programming, touch typing, Go, ukulele, and windsurfing. As a developer, if I must comment on the chapter on programming, the result is far from being remarkable but the process shows it's possible to get started quickly even on skills that can seem daunting at first. That's the biggest contribution of this book. If more people were aware of these techniques to overcome the frustration barrier faster, they will understand learning is more rewarding than consuming media.

"Outlines a systematic approach to acquiring new skills quickly with a minimal amount of daily practice, demonstrating how to break down complex tasks and maximize productivity while overcoming common learning barriers and creating realistic frameworks for reduced learning times."

Bryan Maniotakis

2.5 stars

A general guide on how to learn things fast, coupled with the authors experience learning new skills from start to finish. I found some parts really interesting (learning how to program, play GO, switch keyboard layouts to Colemak), but the windsurfing chapter didn't interest me at all, and the Yoga section felt completely bloated.

Marisa Eikenberry

I picked up this book because I've been trying to learn a lot of new skills lately. Cooking, Italian, and even yoga so I thought this might be the perfect book to help me learn skills quickly. 

It was ... to a point. 

The first section of the book goes into the science of skill acquisition, what it requires, and the steps to achieve it. One of the biggest things I pulled from this was that while it is said 10,000 hours equals a mastery level, you don't need to hit a mastery level in order to feel like you've achieved something with that skill. Josh focuses a lot on what success means to you and even gives some definitions for the six skills he tries to acquire in this book.

Unfortunately, for me, this was the only useful part of the book. While I was interested in the yoga section because I too am trying to learn about yoga, the rest of it seemed useless for me to read. Instead of going into the methods that Josh used to learn things in a general sense, he dials down and gets really specific. At that point, it almost reads like a journal where he's document every single step in his process to reach either his goal or 20-hours, whichever comes first. (Hint: It's usually the former.) This might be great for people that want to learn how to code in Ruby, play Go, teach themselves how to touch type, or even windsurf but I myself am not interested in any of those things. So reading those sections were kind of difficult for me because it immediately lost my interest. 

The premise of this book is good and if nothing else, reading the first section about skill acquisition is worth picking it up, but I'll admit it's only about 1/6th of the book. 

2 stars.

The First 20 Hours How to Learn Anything ... Fast

Reviews