6 ms·

Another similar myth is the one Malcom Gladwell made up about how it takes 10 000 hours of doing something to become an expert at that thing. It was based on re

Another similar myth is the one Malcom Gladwell made up about how it takes 10 000 hours of doing something to become an expert at that thing. It was based on research that used 10 000 as an average for 20 year old violinists. The original researcher, Anders Ericsson, focuses much more on deliberate practice than sheer quantity. https://www.6seconds.org/2022/06/20/10000-hour-rule/ https://www.6seconds.org/2022/06/20/10000-hour-rule/ Related Freakonomics episode with Anders Ericsson among others about how to become an expert: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-become-great-at-just-about-anything/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-become-great-at-just...

Retric 4y ago
10,000 is a round number representing a large fraction of a young person’s life, ~20 hours a week for 10 years. It seems significant because we assume talented young people can be experts if they spend a lot of time on something, but it really just reflects the criteria chosen for defining experts and time on a subject. A prerequisite of becoming a Doctor for example is learning how to read, but that’s not considered part of the time commitment. Recursively when considering how long it takes to be an expert Heart Surgeon there is a tendency to ignore how long it takes to become a Doctor.
- sorenjan 4y ago
  Ericsson's main point is that talent isn't as important as a lot of people, including other experts in the field, think. What matters is identifying your weaknesses and training specifically to improve those, often with the help of a coach. Just doing something for a long time doesn't necessarily make you great at it.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Then again, weakness of that argument is that all people in the study qualify as talented.
  - Retric 4y ago
    That falls into the same trap of ignoring all the time perfecting prerequisite skills. An Olympic marathon runner needed to get good at balancing before they could learn to walk, and then very good at walking etc.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Similarly, 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese for the 10,000 steps thing that has since caught on globally.
  - ugjka 4y ago
    And 10,000 things
  - mistersquid 4y ago
    > 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese According to a 2019 article from Harvard Health, “10,000 steps” was a marketing term for hardware made by a Japanese company. (Not sure if the original root goes back to Japanese folklore, but the article implies it doesn’t.) > Dr. Lee discovered that the origins of the number go back to 1965, when a Japanese company made a device named Manpo-kei, which translates to "10,000 steps meter." “The name was a marketing tool,” she says. [0] [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/10000-steps-a-day-or-fewer-2019071117305 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/10000-steps-a-day-or-few...
TillE 4y ago
I don't think Gladwell is a particularly insightful guy, but as someone who has actually read a couple of his books, I feel like the "10,000 hours" thing is frequently misrepresented. The claim isn't "put in 10k hours and you'll magically become an expert". It's "if you want to become an expert, you have to put in 10k hours". Necessary but not sufficient.
- amelius 4y ago
  Not necessarily. You can become an expert in your self-defined programming language without putting in 10k hours.
  - mminer237 4y ago
    You probably need ~10k hours in programming in general. Just a lot of the skill transfers over in that case.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    The feels more like a violinist learning a new song, and in this case one they made up, rather than learning an entirely new skillset.
- locuscoeruleus 4y ago
  The 10k hours number is also dubious. It just happens to be the average number of hours students at some special violin school have spent in solitaire practice by the time they turn 18 (or what ever age they apply for the school).
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  You can become an expert in cooking a hot dog without 10,000 hours of practice.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Has anyone ever recognize "expert" skill in hot dog cooking? Cooking, certainly, but hot dog cooking?

Retric 4y ago

10,000 is a round number representing a large fraction of a young person’s life, ~20 hours a week for 10 years. It seems significant because we assume talented young people can be experts if they spend a lot of time on something, but it really just reflects the criteria chosen for defining experts and time on a subject. A prerequisite of becoming a Doctor for example is learning how to read, but that’s not considered part of the time commitment. Recursively when considering how long it takes to be an expert Heart Surgeon there is a tendency to ignore how long it takes to become a Doctor.

sorenjan 4y ago
Ericsson's main point is that talent isn't as important as a lot of people, including other experts in the field, think. What matters is identifying your weaknesses and training specifically to improve those, often with the help of a coach. Just doing something for a long time doesn't necessarily make you great at it.
- watwut 4y ago
  Then again, weakness of that argument is that all people in the study qualify as talented.
- Retric 4y ago
  That falls into the same trap of ignoring all the time perfecting prerequisite skills. An Olympic marathon runner needed to get good at balancing before they could learn to walk, and then very good at walking etc.
nibbleshifter 4y ago
Similarly, 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese for the 10,000 steps thing that has since caught on globally.
- ugjka 4y ago
  And 10,000 things
- mistersquid 4y ago
  > 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese According to a 2019 article from Harvard Health, “10,000 steps” was a marketing term for hardware made by a Japanese company. (Not sure if the original root goes back to Japanese folklore, but the article implies it doesn’t.) > Dr. Lee discovered that the origins of the number go back to 1965, when a Japanese company made a device named Manpo-kei, which translates to "10,000 steps meter." “The name was a marketing tool,” she says. [0] [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/10000-steps-a-day-or-fewer-2019071117305 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/10000-steps-a-day-or-few...

TillE 4y ago

I don't think Gladwell is a particularly insightful guy, but as someone who has actually read a couple of his books, I feel like the "10,000 hours" thing is frequently misrepresented. The claim isn't "put in 10k hours and you'll magically become an expert". It's "if you want to become an expert, you have to put in 10k hours". Necessary but not sufficient.

amelius 4y ago
Not necessarily. You can become an expert in your self-defined programming language without putting in 10k hours.
- mminer237 4y ago
  You probably need ~10k hours in programming in general. Just a lot of the skill transfers over in that case.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  The feels more like a violinist learning a new song, and in this case one they made up, rather than learning an entirely new skillset.
locuscoeruleus 4y ago
The 10k hours number is also dubious. It just happens to be the average number of hours students at some special violin school have spent in solitaire practice by the time they turn 18 (or what ever age they apply for the school).
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
You can become an expert in cooking a hot dog without 10,000 hours of practice.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Has anyone ever recognize "expert" skill in hot dog cooking? Cooking, certainly, but hot dog cooking?