Wednesday, May 23, 2012

One Hundred Hours

I was thinking about these metrics I've heard that expertise and virtuosity can be basically guaranteed if you put in 10,000 hours into something. It got me to thinking: What could I get done with 100 hours? 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks. Or 1 hour a day for 20 weeks (giving yourself 2 days off a week). What could I really LEARN in that time:

- Could I learn to play guitar well enough to be that guy around the campfire?
- Could I get my piano playing back up to Suzuki Book 4 level?
- Could I get a working knowledge of a language I know nothing about yet (Polish? Italian?)

I think that I could probably pick up just about anything and become workable at it if not particularly graceful: I may be able to strum chords, but not able to do fancy flamenco picking. Maybe be able to converse about the weather but not politics. I know that Pimsleur Method is basically 40 hours of lessons for the full series (assuming each lesson done once). So I could do 90 Pimsleur lessons, and then pick up some additional material...?

I can't shake the feeling that 100 might be sort of magical: A serious commitment of time, but achievable. And an amount of time after which you really could have something to show for it.

I'm thinking about what my 100 hour challenge might be for this summer. What can I start from scratch, and post video updates at each 10 hour window?

Hmmmm....

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