Exercise The First 20 Hours

Oh boy.

We just learned a ton of techniques.

Seems a little overwhelming right.

But remember what I said.

You don’t have to remember all of these.

Just pick and choose some of the techniques that we learn here.

But let’s do a fun little exercise.

And this one’s called the first 20 hours.

Pause the video and try to think of a topic that you want to learn a skill that you want to acquire.

But this time we only want to focus on what you’re going to do.

The first 20 hours we’ve done exercises like this already in the course.

But I want us to really finalize things with the techniques we have learned by the way.

This idea of first 20 hours was popularized by Josh Hoffman and he has two really good books one it’s

called the first 20 hours and the other one is called alter learning and both of these books are really

interesting because Josh argues that you don’t need to become a master of a skill.

We all strive to be masters but you can actually acquire this good enough or valuable skill quite fast

as a matter of fact sometimes within the first 20 hours.

Now this obviously sounds too good to be true but it’s an important concept that we often think we’re

so far away from a goal.

But there’s things that we can do in the first 20 hours to really propel us to really get us as far

as possible to continue on our road towards mastery.

So pick a skill a topic that you want to learn.

Pause the video and try to think what you would do in the first 20 hours based on the techniques you

just learned.

All right.

Ready.

Let’s get started.

So the first thing I would do and you should hopefully know this by now is to create a learning map

a roadmap to what you’re going to learn.

What’s the strategy that you’re going to take in these 20 hours next knowing that we need to test ourself

and have active learning.

I want to design practice drills.

What am I going to practice how am I going to test myself.

So based on what I want to learn how am I going to know that maybe every hour I’ve retained whatever

I learned.

Now Josh also advises of doing something called over learning now over learning is something I already

talked about that I actually advise against because it’s not an efficient way to learn.

Josh mentions over learn as a way to go beyond the requirements to go beyond what most people try to

achieve within the first 20 hours so it’s just about being ambitious.

So this is a point that you can decide for yourself.

I personally prefer doing the over learn technique over a long period of time instead of all at once

because that leads to burnout.

Now the next thing I would do is I would make sure that I have some sort of a good feedback system as

their coaches or a mentor.

Is there a body that I can talk to and keep myself accountable maybe even have some rewards and stakes

in place in case I don’t finish whatever I set out to do in the first 20 hours then I’ll maybe combining

with a Pomodoro technique and doing short and intense practices combined with breaks in between and

also making sure that I sleep well at night.

But we also only have 20 hours.

So based on what skill or learning I wanted to do I want to break down the skill during my road mapping

phase two different sub skills and different chunks to deconstruct to the essence of that skill.

What’s the period of principle.

What’s the 20 percent that’s going to give me 80 percent of the results.

Then we start off by learning the most critical skill first and then finally in those first 20 hours

I want to make it as easy as possible for me to actually not procrastinate and finish that task.

Have everything around you with no distractions make all your senses alive and make yourself feel good

and making it as easy for me to stick to that 20 hour period.

So give it a go.

What are you going to learn over the next 20 hours.

And at the end of 20 hours shared with us in our desk or community and let us know what you just learned

in 20 hours and whether you are efficient or not and if you found some interesting techniques or advice

that you found works for you.

Do share because I bet many people would benefit from it.

I’ll see you in the next one by.