How long does it take to become good at something? How much practice does it take?
It takes about ten years of intentional practice to become excellent at something, but you can become better at something right away. In fact, any amount of practice is beneficial.
Read for more on why practice can have such an immediate impact and how long you need to stick with something to become great.
When Does Practice Start Having an Effect?
Deliberate practice can improve your performance almost immediately, as any amount of practice increases your understanding and thus equips you to perform better. Therefore, people of every age and experience level should deliberately practice. Even if you don’t have time to become excellent, you can become better. So if you’re asking yourself, “How long does it take to become good at something?”, the answer depends on whether you’re looking to become an expert or simply looking to get better.
(Shortform note: In Mastery, George Leonard adds the caveat that, while your skills may start improving immediately with focused practice, improvement will be incremental and may not be noticeable. This can discourage people and make them quit. He suggests overcoming this discouragement by viewing practice as a lifestyle rather than a means to an end. Instead of progress being a step toward excellence, Leonard holds progress as the main goal. This more achievable goal could make sustained practice more appealing to people who are older or less experienced, who may struggle to make the time commitment needed to achieve excellence.)
If you want to achieve world-class excellence, however, deliberate practice requires a massive time commitment. On average, it takes 10 years of continual deliberate practice for a person to improve their understanding and skill enough to perform excellently. The inability or unwillingness to make this commitment is one of the reasons so few people achieve excellence.
It takes this long because even experts can only deliberately practice for four to five hours a day. Beginners can usually only manage an hour. You can’t increase your understanding and skills any faster because continually evaluating your performance is mentally taxing. After a few hours, you can’t maintain the focus needed to improve, so any further practice is ineffective.
(Shortform note: Ericsson observed people’s limited ability to focus in his studies on deliberate practice—though he defined the limit as two to four hours. Specifically, he says that deliberate practice becomes less effective after two hours, and there’s almost no benefit to practicing more than four hours. While you may not be able to exceed this limit, strive to meet it, so you’re taking full advantage of your focus instead of being limited to an hour. One way to extend your focus is to follow a set schedule, Cal Newport says in Deep Work. Once the schedule becomes habitual, you’ll focus automatically and won’t need to use as much willpower to overcome distraction.)
Even individuals who appear to have meteoric success follow this pattern. Mozart is an example: He composed his first excellent piece of music at a very young age compared to his peers. This makes people assume that he had an inherent talent that let him skip the practice his peers needed. However, Mozart started practicing composition when he was a toddler. It was almost 20 years of practice later that his performance was noticed.
How Long Does It Take to Become Good at Something? It Depends
FAQs
It takes about ten years of intentional practice to become excellent at something, but you can become better at something right away. In fact, any amount of practice is beneficial. Read for more on why practice can have such an immediate impact and how long you need to stick with something to become great.
How long does it take to become very good at something? ›
The rule is famously mentioned by author Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success. The book emphasized the fact that a person needs at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at anything.
How many hours of practice does it take to become good at something? ›
For most disciplines, it only takes one hundred hours of active learning to become much more competent than an absolute beginner. The 10,000 hour rule is based on becoming the best of the best: it requires a tremendous amount of practice (and probably innate talent, too) to reach the top 1% in a given field.
What is the 20 hour rule? ›
Kaufman's 20 hour rule goes a little like this: A person can learn any new skill by dedicating 20 hours of planned practice time to that skill. Breaking down practice sessions into 45 minutes of practice a day can lead you to learn a new skill in as little as a month!
How long does it take to truly master something? ›
At this point the 10,000 hours theory about gaining mastery has done its rounds online. For anyone who has not heard it yet, the idea (made popular by writer Malcolm Gladwell) was that mastery is not born, but created, practiced, and executed. It takes about 10,000 hours of guided practice to become masterful.
What is the 20-hour rule Kaufman? ›
To get good at any skill, you must practice it in a real-life context, not merely read about it or watch others do it. Because it's easy to get frustrated and give up on a skill at the beginning, Kaufman recommends you commit to doing at least 20 hours of deliberate practice. This is the 20-hour rule.
How to be extremely good at something? ›
The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something
- First, you must learn it by reading or listening to others who know how to do it, but most especially by doing.
- Then do some more. At this point, you'll start to understand it, but you'll suck. ...
- Do some more. After a couple of years, you'll get good at it.
- Do some more.
The '100-hour rule', however, is all about attaining proficiency in a shorter span. Think of it: just 18 minutes a day for a year amounts to 100 hours. In five years, that's 500 hours – setting you on the path to becoming an exceptional golfer.
How long is 10,000 hours? ›
10,000 hours works out to be around 20 hours per week for ten years. Ten years is a long time but 20 hours a week isn't so bad especially when you consider the average person watches 3-4 hours of television a day and spends a considerable time on social media.
What can I learn in 100 hours? ›
Creative pursuits: Learn to paint, write, play an instrument, or master a new photography technique. 100 hours can transform a beginner into a confident creator. Professional skills: Boost your coding abilities, learn a new language, or master data analysis.
While 20 hours may not make you an expert, it's enough to become proficient and confident in the basics of a new skill. This means that you can learn a new skill in as little as 45 minutes a day for a month, or four hours a day for a week.
How many hours do student athletes practice? ›
For example, when you travel for matches or competitions you often miss classes or skip practices for that particular day. Generally speaking, a College athlete will have three hours of classes per day on average. They'll also be at practice for two hours a day, with an hour either side for 'prehab' and rehab.
Can I work 20 hours a day? ›
What is the law in California? Under California wage and hour laws, there is no limit to the number of hours an employee can work in a single workday.
Who said it takes 10,000 hours to master something? ›
You've probably heard of the 10,000 hour rule, which was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's blockbuster book “Outliers.” As Gladwell tells it, the rule goes like this: it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills and materials, like playing the violin or getting as good as Bill Gates ...
How long does it take to develop a skill? ›
For simple skills, such as basic computer literacy, it may only take a few days or weeks to become proficient. However, for more complex skills, such as learning a programming language or mastering a new software program, it can take several months or even years to become truly proficient.
How to become the best at anything? ›
4 things you need to become great at anything
- Actively cultivate passion and purpose. Mixed in the right way, passion and purpose are a boundless energy source. ...
- Use deep practice. ...
- Build resilience by changing your mindset. ...
- Be smart with your mental state. ...
- 10 ways to improve your memory at work.
On average, it takes 10 years of continual deliberate practice for a person to improve their understanding and skill enough to perform excellently. The inability or unwillingness to make this commitment is one of the reasons so few people achieve excellence.
How long does it take to become an expert at something? ›
Ericsson suggests that it is sometimes around the 20,000- to 25,000-hour mark that people truly become experts or masters of a skill or subject. Secondly, not all skills are the same. Some skills require far fewer than 10,000 hours to reach the expert level, while others require much more.
How long does it take to get good at a skill? ›
Dr. K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University, as well as other researchers, have found that it takes around 10 years or 10,000 hours of practice to reach the top of ultracompetitive, easily ranked performance fields, like professional golf, music performance, or chess.
How long does it take to fully learn something? ›
Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills - time you don't have and effort you can't spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill to mastery.
