In many personal development texts, the magical number 10,000 hours often comes up. If we calculate 5 hours a day, that amounts to 2,000 days. Roughly 6 years.

Quite a lot, isn't it?

But What Does the 10,000 Hours Really Mean?

So, as I understand it, there's a hypothesis that after dedicating 10,000 hours to a particular subject, we enter the "master" phase of that domain. It doesn't matter which domain we're discussing - whether it's creating, performing, or any other field of learning. Simply put, after crossing a certain threshold of immersion and delving deeper into a subject, we achieve success. What's interesting is what happens during this so-called "in-between" phase (before reaching this magical threshold) and what happens after crossing it multiple times. But I'll leave that for you to contemplate.

Is It True, Though?

In my opinion, the first automatic association is that after such a long time, you must be a master of that domain - and I absolutely agree with that.

On the other hand, is that enough time? And here, I confidently answer - YES! It's a considerable amount of time to delve into the core and explore peripheral aspects as well.

Did It Work for Me?

Ha, yes. About 26 years ago (oh my, I just calculated it. 26 years, damn it), my first encounter with a computer, followed by various variations, sometimes consumption-oriented, sometimes more or less creative. Then came university. All together, it added up to several thousand hours.

It provided a foundation of skills. Then, a real 10,000 hours of focused work on a relatively narrow scope resulted in full specialization.

Now, I assert and repeat that the 10,000-hour rule generally works. And there are no shortcuts.