[anthonycerra]

This is a cool brain hack in that it uses math to convince you that you're not too old to become a master at something.

One issue I have with the 10,000 hour rule in general is this: there are approximately 2,088 hours in a work-year not counting overtime. To achieve mastery in your profession would then take less than 5 years. Most professions don't consider someone an expert 5 years into their careers. So does that mean a) you're not really improving that much in those 5 years b) there are more conditions to the 10,000 hour rule c) the 10,000 hour rule is flawed or d) the evaluation of one's expertise is flawed?

Another issue I have with the 10,000 hour rule is the idea of competence and sufficient experience. At what level of experience (in this case, hours) are you competent enough to achieve your goal? If programming, at what level can you create something that solves a given problem. If business, at what level can you successfully run a startup, etc.

So if the target changes to "enough experience to achieve a specific goal" then I'd argue one has much more time available to him/her than what this math suggests.

[kenjackson]

The 10k hour rule isn't about experience, but about deliberate practice. Two very different things.

[sputknick]

I work roughly 2000 hours a year in my field, but that includes meetings, and HR stuff, and answering client questions, creating proposals etc.. I would bet I spend right around 400-800 hours a year growing in my field. That would put mastery more like 10-25 years away.

[kylescheele]

Agreed.

I think this is where you get into mastery vs. experience. 10k hours of a task does not make you an expert unless you've spent those 10k hours deliberately attempting to gain expertise.

This is also where you get into good practice vs. bad practice. i.e., the average golf enthusiast "practices" by going to the driving range, because it's easy and fun and he's probably already decent at using a driver. Someone who wants to become a golf professional practices by hitting a hundred balls out of a sand trap or driving into the wind or any number of other difficult techniques they're not good at yet.

It's not so much the passage of time (10k hours) that matters, as it is how you spend those hours.

To your second point, "mastery" is sort of a vague term. I like your idea of "enough to achieve a certain goal". That's probably better from a mental health perspective too (experts in many fields are pretty crazy because they've devoted themselves exclusively to this one narrow area for years and years).

[yaddayadda]

In addition to deliberate practice, there's also the relationship of time when practiced. Here's a good layperson's explanation - http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-do...

[beeffective]

As others have said, those 2088 hours a year in my job aren't deliberate practice, and as a software engineer, I spend about 2 hours a day or less doing software development. However, after 8 years of professional software development, I'm finally reaching a point of not only being highly skilled, but also establishing a track record of influence and communication due to my increasing confidence. The project experience and successes have been a huge help, but only when I spend the mental energy to engage in my "meetings" and "email" that relate to my new projects.

In other words, I can see the benefit of taking all aspects of my job seriously, even meetings, because they are the backbone of influencing others on your ideas/design as well as fully understanding all aspects of a project.

[epo]

Hours spent doing something is not the same as hours spent in targetted time to achieve mastery of your chosen domain. Lots of kids spend hours and hours kicking footbals, few become the next Ronaldo, Messi, Beckham ...

[jeffasinger]

Also, most people aren't doing only one thing while they're at work.