This rule is a bit tricky. I have discovered that people burn out if they just study one thing. You can break your studying into different parts, like a doctor studying the circulatory system on one day and the nervous system the next, but that only does so much. At some point you just need to stop, and focus on something else.
That is where this rule comes in. If you can go 3 years spending an hour a day studying one thing great. If you can go the 30 you need to hit mastery even better. This post is not for you. This is for the rest of us mere mortals. You go play on Mount Olympus. Tell Athene I said hi. This is also a rule to help you determine what you should be studying. As I said, it’s a bit tricky.
Let’s start with the what you should be studying. I recommend having 2 (in some cases 3) things you are working towards mastering. One of these things should most defiantly be your career. This should take you some time to think about it. What exactly do you want to do, and what do you want to be known for?
Don’t just blurt out an answer. Do some research on it. Is it something you could do day in and day out? Is it something you need to do every day to be successful? What time do you need to wake up? I think my uncles an excellent case study of this.
My uncle, uncle Stew, was a very bright high school student. He really could have been anything. He did a tone of research and narrowed what he wanted to do to 2 things. Be a mathematician or be a marine biologist. He was strongly leaning towards marine biologist. It just sounds cooler than doing math all day. But he did something most people don’t. He went to see what their life was like.
He spent 2 or 3 hours with the marine biologist before going running to the mathematics degree. Why you ask? For starters my uncle Stew is not a morning person. He had to be at the ocean at 4 am. Not be up. At the ocean at 4 am to collect samples from their traps. He then had to get into ice cold water, something my uncle is a wimp about, and haul around big heavy cages while the ocean tried to drown him. He was instantly turned off by the idea and never looked back.
Pick this 10,000 hour rule well. We are talking last man standing in The Hunger Games choices here. We are talking Luke Skywalker going into face Darth Vader matters. Pick this one carefully. Your second one is more a thing of values. Do you need to be really invested in your work? You might pick something else for that. Work is a field you fear might go under? Maybe you want to have a backup job in your back pocket. Maybe none of that matters to you and you just want to have a really good relationship and you choose to work on that.
A lot more could be said about this but I will move on to the 1,000 hour part. After you have burned out on the thing that is a 10,000 hour activity you want to switch to something you want to be an expert in but don’t want to master. For example, your health might be a 1,000 hour activity. You have no desire to go out and do the testing and research yourself but it’s something you care about. So when your burnt out, you switch to studying health.
Another
thing people often forget about this is that it does not have to be something
that is purely beneficial to your life. It might just be something you like. I
brought up D&D before by that is a 1,000 hour activity for me. I take
breaks to study that and how to be a better DM. I also read a few books on how
to train dogs and testing things I have read. An example is in the picture
bellow.
This brings up a common question. Should 1/10 of the time I spend studying be these 1,000 hour activity’s? They can be. They are not for me. I would say it is closer to 1/20 for me. The purpose of these is to help prevent burn out and keep your learning muscle going. It is not to make you an expert in all of these things. The goal is still to master your 2 (or 3) 10,000 hour skills. It has the very nice side effect of making you competent in many areas but that is just a side benefit.
Lastly, I want to leave you with a small list of things you can study for 1,000 hour activity’s.
- Politics
- Dieting
- Working out
- Budgeting
- People skill
- Any hobby
- How to cook
- How to make money