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The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

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81–90 of 124 posts

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#81

Given the 10,000 hour rule as generally true (at least in spirit), what's very difficult and seldom discussed is just how hard it is to get there at anything worthwhile once you're passed a certain point in life. Why? Because job. Having gone through college and taken work terms between years, I saw this first-hand: after you're done 9 to 5 for that paycheck (+food, +commuting, +exercise, +social life), good luck fin…

There are ways around the 'because job' problem. I've been reading a lot on this guys blog: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ and he's got some pretty interesting ideas on getting off the treadmill, with both actionable advice and the lead character eating his own dogfood.

Most people are astonishingly bad at savings and investments, and this includes some really smart people who fail to make a good recurring income out of windfall scenarios.

I tend to see this as failure of humans in general to visualize large structures. There fore similar things like large timelines, growth scenario's, compounding. One would be surprised how common this is. People can think of probably a couple of years, but their understanding fails them when they have imagine of scenarios 2 or 3 decades from now. Some times its so bad, they even totally avoid thinking about it.

I know a lot of people who made a fortune in the 1990's when they were in their 20's, but are now back to where they were when they are in their 40's. And you don't have to even to win the start up lottery to do this. A good savings and investment strategy will get you there. But that very rarely happens.

Most people can at most simply maintain the status quo all their lives.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#82

Given the 10,000 hour rule as generally true (at least in spirit), what's very difficult and seldom discussed is just how hard it is to get there at anything worthwhile once you're passed a certain point in life. Why? Because job. Having gone through college and taken work terms between years, I saw this first-hand: after you're done 9 to 5 for that paycheck (+food, +commuting, +exercise, +social life), good luck fin…

Your "passionate society" is appealing in theory, but it doesn't work in practice.

In a market economy, someone offers you a price for your labor. You decide whether or not to accept it. If you're passionate about something nobody wants to pay for, why should you still be paid?

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#83

Is the 10,000 hour rule even true? I know this was popularized by Gladwell's book 'Outliers' but I had heard the study referred to in the book might not be accurate. Is it that 10,000 of practice is common to experts or that there are no experts without 10,000 hours of practice?

I take it as similar to the rule of thumb that you should walk 10,000 steps per day. It was made up for marketing a pedometer, and most experts I've heard from say it's not based on any facts, but it's close enough that merely striving for 10,000 steps per day is a good goal to set.

It might not be accurate, but it's not bad in terms of setting a goal for yourself. It helps you to focus on the right thing (get more practice, take more steps, etc).

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#84

Given the 10,000 hour rule as generally true (at least in spirit), what's very difficult and seldom discussed is just how hard it is to get there at anything worthwhile once you're passed a certain point in life. Why? Because job. Having gone through college and taken work terms between years, I saw this first-hand: after you're done 9 to 5 for that paycheck (+food, +commuting, +exercise, +social life), good luck fin…

> Why? Because job.

So, why do you trade your lifetime away for cash and perceived "job security"? Maybe it's time to get a little more entrepreneurial?

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#85
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>this is the best argument for basic income You only feel the need for a basic income because you are currently strapped for time and you crave for more time to work on something far more creative. Once time comes in abundant supply you will now be faced with a situation where you will have a lot of time and won't really understand the reason why you would want to work hard(Your basic needs are met) or spend time do…

You have a point and it's definitely true that for many, the big part of the desire to do something creative that is not job comes from being busy and not having time to do this. But I doubt that if you got rid of jobs, people would waste time. I sometimes wondered why I can't seem to be as productive, or learn as much fast enough, as I had been in high school or when I started university. I realized that it's not th…

A basic thing I notice is every time I'm working on a interesting project at work, or when I change jobs the craving for a side project decreases. But then there are only that many interesting things you can do in this industry for years. Beyond that you need to keep moving towards something new every 1 - 1.5 years. If you are lucky you will end up in a company that will let you go after interesting projects and will upgrade your responsibilities with your experience. Else you will have to keep looking for them outside, or start a side project in your spare time.

I have a mentor who is quite a successful guy. I've grilled him enough to know the biggest secret is refusal to work for anything that sounds uninteresting. If you look at his career history, it just comes clear that he never touches any project that demands maintenance or support. Its through and through new interesting projects which involve innovating or building new platforms, frameworks or systems.

I think Steve Jobs's advice comes handy:

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#87

Given the 10,000 hour rule as generally true (at least in spirit), what's very difficult and seldom discussed is just how hard it is to get there at anything worthwhile once you're passed a certain point in life. Why? Because job. Having gone through college and taken work terms between years, I saw this first-hand: after you're done 9 to 5 for that paycheck (+food, +commuting, +exercise, +social life), good luck fin…

> Why? Because job. So, why do you trade your lifetime away for cash and perceived "job security"? Maybe it's time to get a little more entrepreneurial?

"Because job" I don't think specifically refers to wage labor; entrepreneurship is often people apply existing expertise, not developing new expertise from scratch, because that's generally where their competitive advantage lies, and competitive edge is at least as important in entrepreneurial efforts as in wage labor. The constraint seems to be that needing to spend significant time applying your current-best skills reduces available time to develop expertise in new skill areas.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a poor attitude! This isn't Science magazine. The entire article -- a hypothesis anyway -- is prefaced by "words I would have wanted to hear as a child". Were you expecting him to run experiments for this piece?

"This isn't Science magazine." Finish that thought. This isn't Science magazine so... we can just make things up and say whatever we want, even if it's blatantly and provably untrue?

This isn't Science magazine; an interesting or thought-provoking idea is just as valuable as a repeatable experiment.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This isn't Science magazine." Finish that thought. This isn't Science magazine so... we can just make things up and say whatever we want, even if it's blatantly and provably untrue?

This isn't Science magazine; an interesting or thought-provoking idea is just as valuable as a repeatable experiment.

Yes, in the same way a good fiction story is. "Wouldn't it be nice if life were so simple as I'm about to describe?"

But this doesn't present itself as a fiction, this presents itself as true, when it's clearly the case that the author has no idea if it's true or not, having not done the requisite legwork to verify.

Re: The 1,000-hour rule (2009)

#90

Given the 10,000 hour rule as generally true (at least in spirit), what's very difficult and seldom discussed is just how hard it is to get there at anything worthwhile once you're passed a certain point in life. Why? Because job. Having gone through college and taken work terms between years, I saw this first-hand: after you're done 9 to 5 for that paycheck (+food, +commuting, +exercise, +social life), good luck fin…

It's interesting you didn't mention family at all. Having kids is a huge commitment of time. I think a good take-away from your rant (plus the consideration of family) is that we need to be talking more about making time for things. Too often we talk a great deal about what can be done in a few hours a day, but when it comes to making that time, we just say, "If it's important to you, you'll make the time." We should…

Having kids is optional.

That's a voluntary sacrifice in a way that having a job is very much not. They don't really belong in the same breath.

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