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10,000 hour rule
Lostie
Veteran
I re-watched Groundhog Day last night and did some searches on the net. Phil actually took years to master playing the piano and ice sculpting. Then I read about the 10000 hour rule to truly master a skill by M Gladwell.
So I am thinking aloud here. Suppose you aspire to be a master chef. Say you practice 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, starting from the bottom as an apprentice.
5 X 6 = 30 hours per week, I'll take away the weekends.
30 hours X 52 weeks = 1560 hours per year, I'll take away 8 national holidays.
1560 hours - (8 X 6) hours = 1512 hours per year.
Finally we take, 10000 hours divides by 1512 hours = 6.6 years.
Now extrapolate the 6.6 years into actual living years. I'll take 6 hours of daily training X 4 to make it 24 hours.
Therefore, 6.6 years X 4 = 26.4 actual living years!
That's about a third of a lifetime.
Does this math all make sense?
I thought the timing is just about right but one should consider other factors of course like, talent, work ethic eg.
P/S to Mod : can this thread be under 'Buddhism for Beginners' category?
So I am thinking aloud here. Suppose you aspire to be a master chef. Say you practice 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, starting from the bottom as an apprentice.
5 X 6 = 30 hours per week, I'll take away the weekends.
30 hours X 52 weeks = 1560 hours per year, I'll take away 8 national holidays.
1560 hours - (8 X 6) hours = 1512 hours per year.
Finally we take, 10000 hours divides by 1512 hours = 6.6 years.
Now extrapolate the 6.6 years into actual living years. I'll take 6 hours of daily training X 4 to make it 24 hours.
Therefore, 6.6 years X 4 = 26.4 actual living years!
That's about a third of a lifetime.
Does this math all make sense?
I thought the timing is just about right but one should consider other factors of course like, talent, work ethic eg.
P/S to Mod : can this thread be under 'Buddhism for Beginners' category?
0
Comments
Needing to factor in the weekends,
100 days of weekend per year X 26.4 = 2640 days
2640 days divides by 365 days = 7.2 years of weekends
so 26.4 + 7.2 = 33.6 years!
:cool:
The actual theory is quite interesting. One of my lecturers told me about it last week, so I've been combining it with mindfuless to consider whether the current hour counts towards something... a good way to stop myself from wasting days.
As for moving this to Buddhism for beginners, I don't see how it would fit there.
The 10,000-hour 'rule' is just a guess. 10,000 is a nice, round number, isn't it? The kind of thing you throw out there when you want to make an order-of-magnitude "estimate." I wouldn't trust it very far. Malcolm Gladwell has founded quite an industry of roping people in with such intriguing but ultimately facile pronouncements.
So I need to take 6.6 years X 4 = 26.4 years (including sleeping time etc)
When you take the 6 hours of practice time and multiply it by the number of weekdays, you're already accounting for 'living time'. You get 30 hours/week of practice out of the 168 hours total, so that's 138 living hours and 30 practice hours per week.
Am I misinterpreting what you're saying?
1512 hours per year.
10000 hours / 1512 hours = 6.6 years.
it takes a samurai maker three times that amount.
There are only 7 in the whole of Japan, qualified to call themselves such masters.
As for Japanese cuisine, only 35% of japanese chefs are qualified to prepare Fugu fish, for example.
The value is somewhat arbitrary, but the point isn't so much that putting in 10000 hours into an activity will make you a master. It's more about nature vs nurture. For example, you could say Mozart must've been naturally talented, since he was composing music at a very early age. However, his father was a music teacher and made him practice many hours a day. Actual research shows that above all other factors, the single most accurate way to tell how good someone is at an activity is by the amount of hours they've put into it. Another example is Steve Wozniak... a brilliant engineer who invented the first personal computer and co-founded apple. His father was an engineer for the US army (or something like that). At a very early age, Woz was taught everything about electronics and transistors (which were the newest thing back then). He had a head start over everybody else because he had access to some of the newest technology available. He wasn't born a great engineer, he put the hours in to become one.
You could say work ethic, motivation and all that is more important, but obviously to put in that many hours, you'd have to be pretty motivated anyway.
My girlfriend always talks about how some people are just so smart that they don't have to study to do well on exams. I kept telling her that they study, they just don't let her know about how much they actually study. It turns out the person she has in mind tutors maths, so naturally he puts in a lot of time into maths. Since he's studying engineering and his father is an engineer, he'll obviously find it pretty easy to grasp new concepts, considering the amount of time he puts into maths while tutoring.
So yeah... it's not the 10000 hours that's the point.
Pretty much anything in the classical repertoire.
Many artists hit their prime in their 20's. Not having spent anywhere near that amount of time developing their skills.
Creativity has much to do with this. And creativity mostly have to do with releasing an energy that is inside of you (or not having it blocked to begin with), rather than learning anything.
So no, the math aren't working with my experience.
that sounds about right to me.
Give or take some decimal places.
not talking about meditation in particular; but put 10 000 hours practicing concentration meditation and you will have seen lots of jhana action by the time you are done
spiritual masturbation is the egos game.
you have to go from a to b to c to d. you have to strive and work hard.
all sounds like ego to me.
To me the ego is pride. Certainly it takes a buddha not to be proud of creations, by seeing through the process and mental lessons.
Therefore we should uSe mastrubation and creation as part of our path.
any path is going to set you astray.
all paths lead to where? a path is going from a to b.
what is true is right here and now. how can a path bring you to now?
a path is only a hinderance to right now. the mind wants to achieve this and that. the mind wants to gain this knowledge and that insight. the mind strives and wants more and more. trade another addiction for the new improved spiritual addiction.
not pointing at anyone. i fell into this trap many times.
But I know to reach the mastery level of any skill, you do have to stop striving at a certain point. Almost effortless.
Have you read the parable of Pao Ting the butcher by Zhuang Zi?
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/bps/gateway/passages/chuang-tzu.htm
A crucial point is that "deliberate" aspect of practice. Gladwell notes that Tiger Woods, for example, doesn't just wallop golf balls aimlessly down the fairway. He hits, observes, listens to his coach, adjusts, hits, observes, listens to his coach, adjusts ... and so on.
Plus, great performers tend to work at the very edge of their capabilities, where pain and failure are constant companions. That's why a similar book "Talent Is Overrated" argues that a necessary precondition to greatness is passion for the thing itself -- not achieving greatness, just the thing.
I agree. Purposeful practice makes perfect.
Tiger Woods is going thru' a prolonged slump right now. It's a different Tiger. At the very top level, it's all mental.
P
I believe it serve a purpose, but is also often a great hindrance to most as it stop people from walking the path. I believe that what you just said is very true for most who begin their journey.
But how could it be any different? Everyone who is not well initiated to Buddhism live in the ignorance of what they truly are(the ego world).
We can only begin from where we are right now.
And where most people are if they are not experienced meditators is in the world of ego, in complete delusion.
simply by removing obstacles that are blocking you from realizing the true nature of your self.
removing the obstacle simply mean observing what is happening, and understanding the true nature of reality by direct experience.
But it turn out that if you are a worm living underground, you cannot realize and understand that the the sun provide energy for plants to grow and provide you with food before you realize that there is more than the underground world; there is an above ground world.
so this is why this is a path and not just an awakening.
The goal is to realize by direct experience that F is true.
But before you can realize that F is true, you must have realized that E is true.
But before you can realize that E is true, you must have realized that D is true...
You must also develop some skills in order to be able to actually look inside so you can observe reality which take a little practice.
If anyone find themselves stuck by this misunderstanding from time to time, perhaps focusing on the 4 noble truth will help you snap out of it.