is it possible to acquire new skills less painfully in a way that requires far less time and effort there's so much I want to do and so little time the story of Modern Life take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn how to do what's on your list what's holding you back from getting started two things most likely time and skill here's an uncomfortable truth the most rewarding experiences in life almost always require some level of skill skills take time and effort to master time we don't have an effort we are reluctant to contribute all get around to it someday when I find the time it's easier to sit in front of the television or surf the web frankly so that's what most of us do and our desires remain dreams here's another uncomfortable truth many things aren't fun until you're good at them every skill has what the author calls a frustration barrier a period of time in which you're horribly unskilled and you're painfully aware of that fact why start something when you know you're going to be bad at it wouldn't it be great to be able to master new skills with less angst to break through the frustration barrier quickly so you can get to the rewarding part to spend less time slogging through confusion and doubt and more time having fun is it possible to acquire new skills less painfully in a way that requires far less time and effort speaking from the author's experience yes it's possible this summary is about the Art and Science of Rapid skill acquisition how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible the purpose of this book is to help you acquire new skills in record time whatever skill you wish to acquire this book will help you acquire it in less time and with less wasted energy with a bit of focused strategic effort you'll find yourself performing well quickly without the fist pounding frustration in this book we'll start with the principles of Rapid skill acquisition how to go about acquiring new skills as quickly as possible these ideas and practices aren't complicated so they won't take long to learn think of these principles as ways to cultivate a temporary obsession rapid skill acquisition happens naturally when you become so curious and interested in something that other concerns fall away at least temporarily think of these principles as ways to identify a skill worthy of temporary Obsession focus on it and remove distractions or barriers that distract you from effective practice in the following chapters you will find the major principles of Rapid skill acquisition choose a lovable project the more excited you are about the skill you want to acquire the more quickly you'll acquire it Carl popper was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century he's the guy who popularized the idea of scientific falsifiability in layman's terms if you can't potentially prove something wrong via observation or experiment it's not actually science popper said many wise things but the following remark is among the wisest the best thing that can happen to a human being is to find a problem to fall in love with that problem and to live trying to solve that problem unless another problem even more lovable appears Tilda Carl popper if you want a formula for living a satisfying productive life you can't go wrong with that one rapid skill acquisition requires choosing a lovable problem or project the more excited you are about the skill you want to acquire the more quickly you'll acquire it in practice finding a lovable project is a very individual matter for example learning to speak and write Mandarin Chinese is not on the author's current list of skills to acquire because there is no urgent need to learn it at the moment and he has other projects He is more interested in tackling if he decides to move to a mandarin speaking part of China in the future it may become lovable but he is not there yet Focus your energy on one skill at a time and place other skills on temporary hold one of the easiest mistakes to make when acquiring new skills is attempting to acquire too many skills at the same time it's a matter of simple math acquiring new skills requires a critical mass of concentrated time and focused attention if you only have an hour or two each day to devote to practice and learning and you spread that time and energy across 20 different skills no individual skill is going to receive enough time and energy to generate noticeable Improvement internalizing this principle is more difficult for some people than others personally the author has always had a renaissance man sort of temperament there are hundreds of things he wants to learn at any given moment in hundreds of different areas emotionally it's difficult for him to decide to defer learning new things he discovers or hear about when he tries to learn everything at once he doesn't really learn anything instead of making progress he spends too much time switching between different skills getting frustrated and moving on to something else that's a recipe for extremely slow skill acquisition pick one new skill you wish to acquire put all of your focus and energy into acquiring that skill and place other skills on temporary hold pick one and only one new skill you wish to acquire put all of your spare focus and energy into acquiring that skill and place other skills on temporary hold David Allen author of getting things done recommends establishing what he calls up someday maybe list a list of things you may want to explore sometime in the future but that aren't important enough to focus on right now by adding an item to the list you're temporarily absolving yourself of responsibility for acting or thinking about the idea until you decide to promote it to active status Define your target performance level a brief statement of what your desired level of skill looks like a Target performance level is a simple sentence that defines what good enough looks like how well would you like to be able to perform the skill you're acquiring your target performance level is a brief statement of what your desired level of skill looks like think of it as a single sentence description of what you're trying to achieve and what you'll be able to do when you're done the more specific your target performance level as the better defining your target performance level helps you imagine what it looks like to perform in a certain way once you determine exactly how good you want or need to be it's easier to figure out how to get there in the words of Charles Kettering the inventor of the electric automobile ignition system a problem well stated as a problem have solved your target performance level is a single sentence description of what you're trying to achieve and what you'll be able to do when you're done how you define your target performance level depends on why you chose to acquire the skill in the first place if your intent is to have fun your target is the point at which you stop feeling frustrated and start enjoying the practice itself if your intent is to perform what's the minimum level of performance you're willing to accept at first once you reach your initial Target performance level you can always choose to keep going if you wish the best Target performance levels seem just Out Of Reach not out of the realm of possibility as a rule the more relaxed your target performance level the more rapidly you can acquire the associated skill if you're operating under a world class Mastery mind said this may feel like cheating you're just lowering the bar so you can win faster right that's exactly what we're doing and it's not cheating remember world class Mastery is not the end point of Rapid skill acquisition we're shooting for capacity and sufficiency at maximum speed not perfection the more relaxed your target performance level the more rapidly you can acquire the associated skill it's important to note that some skills have safety considerations which you should always include in your target performance level getting hurt or killed acquiring a new skill defeats the purpose deconstruct the skill into sub skills this will help you to identify the most important sub skills most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller sub skills once you've identified a skill to focus on the next step is to deconstruct it to break it down into the smallest possible parts for example playing golf is a skill that has many sub-components choosing the correct Club driving off the tee hitting out of a bunker pudding Etc once the skill is deconstructed sufficiently it's much easier to identify which sub skills appear to be most important by focusing on the critical sub skills first you'll make more progress with less effort deconstructing a skill also makes it easier to avoid feeling overwhelmed you don't have to practice all parts of a skill at the same time instead it's more effective to focus on the sub skills that promise the most dramatic overall returns deconstructing the skill before you begin also allows you to identify the parts of the skill that aren't important for beginning practitioners by eliminating the non-critical sub skills or techniques early in the process you'll be able to invest more of your time and energy mastering the critical sub skills first obtain critical tools most skills have prerequisites to practice and performance it's difficult to play tennis if you don't have a tennis racket or learn how to Pilot a helicopter if you don't have access to one what tools components and environments do you need to have access to before you can practice efficiently how can you obtain the very best tools you can find in afford taking a moment to identify critical tools before you start practicing saves precious time by ensuring you have the resources you need before you begin you maximize your practice time eliminate barriers that makes it difficult to acquire a skill there are many things that can get in the way of practice which makes it much more difficult to acquire any new skills these barriers can be anything from significant pre-practice effort such as misplacing your tools not acquiring the correct tools before practicing or skipping setup requirements intermittent resource availability such as using borrowed equipment or relying on a resource that has limited operating hours environmental distractions such as television ringing phones and incoming mail emotional blocks such as fear doubt and embarrassment every single one of these elements makes it harder to start practicing and therefore decreases your acquisition speed relying on Willpower to consistently overcome these barriers is a losing strategy we only have so much willpower at our disposal each day and it's best to use that willpower wisely the best way to invest willpower in support of skill acquisition is to use it to remove these soft barriers to practice by rearranging your environment to make it as easy as possible to start practicing you'll acquire the skill in Far less time make dedicated time for practice the time you spend acquiring a new skill must come from somewhere unfortunately we tend to want to acquire new skills and keep doing many of the other activities we enjoy like watching TV playing Video Games Etc I'll get around to it when I find the time we say to ourselves here's the truth finding time is a myth no one ever finds time for anything in the sense of miraculously discovering some Bank of extra time like finding a 20 bill you accidentally left in your coat pocket if you rely on finding time to do something it will never be done if you want to find the time you must make time you have 24 hours to invest each day 1440 minutes no more or less you will never have more time if you sleep for approximately eight hours a day you have 16 hours at your disposal some of those hours will be used to take care of yourself and your loved ones others will be used for work whatever you have left over is the time you have for skill acquisition if you want to improve your skills as quickly as possible the larger the dedicated blocks of time you can set aside the better the best approach to making time for skill acquisition is to identify low value uses of time then choose to eliminate them as an experiment the author recommends keeping a simple log of how you spend your time for a few days all you need is a notebook the results of this time log will surprise you if you make a few tough choices to cut low value uses of time you'll have much more time for skill acquisition the more time you have to devote each day the less total time it will take to acquire new skills the author recommends making time for at least 90 minutes of practice each day by cutting low value activities as much as possible create fast feedback loops it makes it easier to connect the information to your actions fast feedback means getting accurate information about how well you're performing as quickly as possible the longer it takes to get accurate feedback the longer it will take to acquire the skill take the art of cheese making for example the subtle chemical processes that create fine cheeses often take months or years to complete and there's no way to rush the process without ruining the result if it takes six months to determine whether or not your cheese is any good the delay in feedback makes it difficult to acquire the skill quickly fast feedback naturally leads to Rapid skill acquisition if feedback arrives immediately or with a very short delay it's much easier to connect that information to your actions and make the appropriate adjustments fast feedback leads to Rapid skill acquisition the best forms of feedback are near instantaneous that's why skills like programming can become mildly addictive you make a change and a few milliseconds later the computer tells you whether or not it worked if you don't like the feedback my program crashed make another change and try again tip number one practice by the clock in short bursts our minds are built to learn to notice patterns simulate potential courses of action and figure out what's probably going to happen next they're not built to accurately estimate time how long something will take or how much time you've spent doing something in the early phases of practicing a new skill it's very easy to overestimate how much time you spent practicing when you're no good and you know it time seems to slow to a crawl and it feels like you've been practicing for a longer period of time than you actually have the solution for this is to practice by the clock buy a decent countdown timer and set it for 20 minutes there's only one rule once you start the timer you must practice until it goes off no exceptions this simple technique will make it easier to complete longer periods of sustained practice even when you get tired or frustrated tip number two emphasize quantity and speed when you begin to acquire a new skill it's tempting to focus on practicing perfectly a recipe for frustration your performance of course won't be anywhere close to perfection did you know instead of trying to be perfect focus on practicing as much as you can as quickly as you can while maintaining a good enough form will this method actually help you acquire skills more quickly research says absolutely in academic studies of cognitive and motor skill acquisition researchers have noticed a common pattern when study participants begin to practice a new skill their performance always improves dramatically in a very short period of time it doesn't take much practice at all to go from very slow and grossly incompetent to reasonably fast and noticeably competent in the literature this is referred to as the power law of practice and it appears over and over again the effect has been widely known among skill acquisition researchers since at least 1926 four and it's been replicated many times since in studies of both physical and mental skills one study even went so far as to say any theory of skill acquisition that does not accommodate the power law function for learning can be rejected immediately once you start practicing something new your skills will naturally and noticeably improve in a very short period of time the trick is to start practicing as quickly as possible not thinking about practicing or worrying about practicing but actually practicing start practicing as quickly as possible not thinking about practicing or worrying about practicing but actually practicing it's all too easy to feel like you're investing a lot of time in a skill without practicing very much at all if you've wanted to learn something for a long time you dream about being good at it but you're hesitant to get started you can spend years of mental and emotional energy without improving one bit if you don't know where you're trying to go or don't have a solid strategy to get there you can waste equal amounts of energy and unproductive wandering these 10 principles are designed to help you eliminate this non-productive thrashing and replace it with activities that are fundamental to the skill acquisition process the more time and energy you spend moving through the first two phases of the skill acquisition process and the less time you spend doing things that don't help you the more quickly you'll acquire the skill simple is that learning isn't the same thing as skill acquisition that however doesn't mean learning is unimportant doing a bit of research before you jump into practice can save you precious time energy and emotional fortitude learning makes your practice more efficient which lets you spend more of your practice time working on the most important sub skills first in that Spirit the next chapters explain the major principles of effective learning research the skill and related topics to identify the most important sub skills critical components and required tools for practice spend 20 minutes searching the web browsing a bookstore or scanning the stacks at your local library for books and resources related to the skill the goal is to identify at least three books instructional dvds courses or other resources that appear to be connected to the skill you're trying to acquire before you panic understand that you don't have to spend hours memorizing these resources on the contrary time spent reading or watching is not time spent practicing you're not cramming for an exam the intent of this early research is to identify the most important sub skills critical components and required tools for practice as quickly as possible the more you know in advance about the skill the more intelligently you can prepare the goal is to collect a wide body of knowledge about the skill as quickly as possible creating an accurate overview of what the skill acquisition process will look like for Rapid skill acquisition skimming is better than deep reading by noticing ideas and tools that come up over and over again in different texts you can trust the accuracy of the patterns you notice and prepare your practice accordingly jump in over your head some of your early research will contain Concepts techniques and ideas you don't understand often something will appear particularly important but you'll have no idea what it means you'll read words you don't recognize and see practitioners doing things you can't fathom Don't Panic your initial confusion is completely normal in fact it's great move toward the confusion early research is one of the best ways to identify critical sub skills and ideas but it's also very likely you won't know what they mean the meeting comes later once you've started practicing if you're not confused by at least half of your early research you're not learning as quickly as you're capable of learning if you start to feel intimidated or hesitant about the pace you're attempting you're on the right track provided you're working on a lovable problem or project the more confused you are at the outset the more internal pressure you'll feel to figure things out and the faster you'll learn not being willing to jump in over your head is the single biggest emotional barrier to Rapid skill acquisition feeling stupid isn't fun but reminding yourself that you will understand with practice will help you move from confusion to clarity as quickly as possible identify mental models and mental hooks that make it much easier to discuss your experiences with others as you conduct your research you'll naturally begin to notice patterns ideas and techniques that come up over and over again these concepts are called mental models and they're very important mental models are the most basic unit of learning a way of understanding and labeling an object or relationship that exists in the world as you collect accurate mental models it becomes easier to anticipate what will happen when you take a specific action mental models also make it much easier to discuss your experiences with others mental models are the most basic unit of learning they make it much easier to discuss your experiences with others the more mental models and mental hooks you can identify in your early research the easier it will be to use them while you're practicing imagine the opposite of what you want this will help you to identify important elements that aren't immediately obvious a counter-intuitive way to gain insight into a new skill is to contemplate disaster not perfection what if you did everything wrong what if you got the worst possible outcome this is a problem-solving technique called inversion and it's helpful in learning the essentials of almost anything by studying the opposite of what you want you can identify important elements that aren't immediately obvious Early Learning helps you set appropriate expectations what does a reasonable performance for a beginner actually look like when you jump into acquiring a new skill it's very common to underestimate the complexity of the task or the number of elements involved that are required to perform well if the skill involves the possibility of social Prestige the associated Mystique can also Cloud early expectations many wannabe rock stars have picked up an electric guitar only defined it's extremely difficult to play well sing on key and look fabulous at the same time part of the problem is that being a rock star isn't a single skill it's a bundle of many related sub-skills Each of which will require dedicated practice to develop talking to people who have acquired the skill before you will help dispel myths and misconceptions before you invest your time and energy Did You Know by knowing what you can expect to see as you progress you'll find it much easier to sustain your interest in practice and avoid becoming discouraged early in the process eliminate distractions in your environment they kill focused practice and lack of focused practice leads to slow skill acquisition distractions are Enemy Number One of Rapid skill acquisition distractions kill focused practice and lack of focused practice leads to slow or non-existent skill acquisition you can preempt this by taking a few minutes to anticipate and eliminate or reduce as many distractions as possible before you start practicing the most significant sources of distraction come in two forms electronic and biological your television phone and internet are electronic distractions turn them off unplug them block them or otherwise remove them from your environment while you're practicing unless they're absolutely necessary for the practice itself distractions kill focused practice and lack of focused practice leads to slow skill acquisition well-meaning family members colleagues and pets are biological distractions you can't turn people off but you can let them know in advance that you'll be unavailable while you're practicing which makes it more likely they'll respect your practice time without interrupting the fewer distractions you have while practicing the more quickly you'll acquire the skill use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization to make use of material you've learned while practicing you have to be able to recall related ideas quickly many skills require at least some level of memorization here's the catch your memory isn't perfect whenever you learn something new you'll probably forget it unless you review the concept within a certain period of time this repetition reinforces the idea and helps your brain Consolidated into long-term memory researchers have found that memory follows a Decay curve new Concepts need to be reinforced regularly but the longer you've known a concept the less regularly you need to review it to maintain accurate recall spaced repetition and reinforcement is a memorization technique that helps you systematically review important Concepts and information on a regular basis ideas that are difficult to remember are reviewed often while easier and older concepts are reviewed less often flashcard software programs like Anki super memo and smarter make spaced repetition and reinforcement very simple spaced repetition systems rely on a flash card model of review and you have to create the flash cards yourself by creating flashcards as you're deconstructing a skill you're killing two birds with one stone use the spaced repetition feature in Headway app to learn and remember the most precious and useful information from book summary once you've created your flashcards it only takes a few minutes each day to review them by systematizing the review process and tracking recall these systems can help you learn new ideas techniques and processes in record time did you know if you review the decks consistently you'll memorize necessary Concepts and ideas extremely quickly don't ignore headway's reminders for you to go through your cards create scaffolds and checklists to make your practice more efficient many skills involve some sort of routine setting up preparing maintaining putting away Etc creating a simple system is the best way to ensure these important elements happen with as little additional effort as possible checklists are handy for remembering things that must be done every time you practice they're a way to systematize the process which frees your attention to focus on more important matters checklists are handy for remembering things that must be done every time you practice scaffolds are structures that ensure you approach the skill the same way every time think of the basketball player who establishes a pre-free throw routine wipe hands on pants loosen the shoulders catch the ball from The Ref bounce three times pause for three seconds and shoot that's a scaffold creating scaffolds and checklists makes your practice more efficient they also make your practice easier to visualize which helps you take advantage of mental rehearsal which can help with some forms of physical practice part of the skill acquisition process involves experimentation trying new things to see if they work the true test of useful learning is prediction based on what you know can you guess how a change or experiment will turn out before you do it getting into the habit of making and testing predictions will help you acquire skills more rapidly it's a variation on the scientific method with four key elements observations what are you currently observing knowns what do you know about the topic already hypotheses what do you think will improve your performance tests what are you going to try next the author recommends using a notebook or other reference tool to track your experiments and form hypotheses as you practice by keeping track of your predictions and generating new ideas you'll have more fruitful experiments to test your brain and body are biological systems that have biological needs food water exercise rest and sleep it's very easy to push yourself too hard which is counterproductive without the proper inputs your body and mind won't produce useful output according to Tony Schwartz author of The Power of full engagement 2004 and be excellent at anything 2011 the optimal learning cycle appears to be approximately 90 minutes of focused concentration any more and your mind and body will naturally need a break use that opportunity to exercise rest have a meal or snack take a nap or do something else this principle dovetails very nicely with practicing by the clock by setting your timer for 60 to 90 minutes before you start practicing or researching it will be easier to remember to take a break when you're done you can also split your practice into several smaller parts with a short break in the middle if needed 20 minutes of practice 10 minute break 20 minutes of practice 10-minute break Etc conclusion distractions are Enemy Number One of Rapid skill acquisition you can preempt this by taking a few minutes to anticipate and eliminate as many distractions as possible before you start practicing the most significant sources of distraction come in two forms electronic and biological your television phone and internet are electronic distractions turn them off unplug them block them or otherwise remove them from your environment while you're practicing unless they're absolutely necessary for the practice itself by knowing what you're getting into learning the fundamentals practicing intelligently and developing a practice routine you'll make progress more quickly and consistently and you'll achieve expert status in record time try this if you ultimately decide to master a skill you'll have a better chance of success if you start with 20 hours of Rapid skill acquisition foreign