Cover Photo by Conor Samuel on Unsplash

My 3-steps approach can help you learn more effectively

Learning that many skills in such a short amount of time is nothing but an obsession. But know that obsessions, my friend, don’t have to be all bad. Cambridge dictionary defines “obsession” as such: “something or someone that you think about all the time.”

When you choose your obsession right, it can be a very productive experience. Top performers in the world like Tiger Woods, Conor McGregor, Sheryl Sandberg, and more, are obsessed with their craft and think about it all the time.

“This is not talent, this is an obsession.” — Conor McGregor

Most unproductive obsessions can be turned into something productive when done right. The TV show High Score showcases obsessive gamers who went on to change the video game industry, which ended up being much bigger than the movie and music industries combined.

We shun people with obsessive personalities, but to truly leave your mark in this world, you have to be remarkable. Obsessions can make you remarkable.

For the past three years, my obsession has been about learning new skills. It’s unusual, but that’s exactly why I love it. It all started when I watched Josh Kaufman’s TEDx talk about how to learn skills in 20 hours.

“If all it takes to do an impressive feat like what Kaufman did is 20 hours of practice, imagine how impressive it would be if I repeated the process a few times a month for a year,” I thought to myself.

Thus, my obsession began in the fall of 2017. I never thought it would stick, but it did. And I’m glad it did. In a world where we put specialists on a pedestal, I was happy to see a wealth of benefits from learning more about anything and everything.

In this article, I’ll cover how to set your expectations right and provide you with steps and tools on how to do it. If you want to read about the benefits of learning that many skills, check this article out.

How to set your expectations right

People call me crazy when they hear me say that I’m learning three new skills a month, practicing each for 15 hours only. While there’s some truth to their claim, their doubt revolves around their expectations.

Within 15 hours of practice, you can become very good at a specific thing. What people are missing is how specific that thing must be. There are two important ways to set your expectations right: finding and choosing sub-skills and defining a concrete goal.

How to find and choose sub-skills

To choose the right sub-skill(s) to learn, you have to break down the skill you think you want to learn. People are often too broad with the things they want to learn. They tell me they want to learn “writing”, “programming”, “playing the guitar”, etc. Good luck learning those with just 15–20 hours of practice.

For any of those skills, you can break them down into smaller sub-skills you can reasonably learn given a short timeframe. My favourite method is what I call a skill tree. I explain in detail how to do it in this article.

But let’s use “riding a bicycle” as an example since most of you are already familiar with it. What’s involved in riding a bicycle? Can you guess the sub-skills? Here’s how I broke it down using a skill tree:

How did I do it? It started by breaking the skill down into concepts, facts, and procedures, like this:

I found all the concepts, facts, and procedures by doing simple Google and YouTube searches. I spent about 20 minutes opening dozens of tabs and listing down everything I could find.

Once you break a skill down this way, it’s much clearer what sub-skills you can choose to learn within your first 15–20 hours.

How to define a concrete goal you’ll follow through

For this, I like to define SMART goals. SMART stands for:

Specific: Reduce it to a single little thing.
Measurable: Find ways to qualify and quantify your progress.
Attainable: Challenging but achievable given different constraints.
Relevant: Something you care enough about.
Time-bound: It needs a deadline.

Here are examples of goals I’ve set myself in the past:

Learn to play “Over the Rainbow” at regular speed by the end of the month so I can play it for my son.

Specific:   [play “Over the Rainbow” at regular speed]

Measurable: [speed]

Attainable: A single song with a few simple chords

Relevant:   [so I can play it for my son]

Time-bound: [by the end of the month]

Learn to sustain a 10-minute business conversation in Spanish by the end of the month so I can do SCRUM meetings.

Specific:   [sustain a 10-minute business conversation in Spanish] [do SCRUM meetings]

Measurable: [minutes]

Attainable: SCRUM is structured and limits the vocabulary needed.

Relevant:   [so I can do SCRUM meetings]

Time-bound: [by the end of the month]

Learn to run a Facebook traffic ad with a cost per click of under $1 by the end of the month so that I can run effective ads for my businesses.

Specific:   [run a Facebook traffic ad with a cost per click of under $1]

Measurable: [cost per click]

Attainable: A FB ads expert told me $1 is very good and doable.

Relevant:   [so that I can run effective ads for my businesses]

Time-bound: [by the end of the month]

Steps to learn skills in 20 hours or less

There are only three steps to learning any skill: Prepare, Practice, and Ponder (3P). These steps, however, need to be repeated a few times during the process. We’ll call those “3P Cycles”.

The overall process looks like this:

Steps to learn skills in 20 hours or less. Mind map created using Mind Meister.

We’ll explore the different cycles but let’s start by defining the steps within each cycle.

1. Prepare

In this step, you want to focus on finding any information you can about the skill or sub-skills you want to learn. The process usually involves Googling different ways to learn what you want to learn and read about what you want to learn. You can also watch short videos. You should also schedule your practice sessions in this step.

2. Practice

In this step, you want to spend time taking action on the skill or sub-skills you want to learn. This is where the learning will happen. With the preparations you did in the first step, you should know exactly what you need to practice and how to practice it.

3. Ponder

In this step, you want to spend time reflecting on at least three things: what went right, what went wrong, and how you can improve. The deeper you dig, the clearer your next move should be and the easier it will be to get the next cycle going.

Now that you know the steps, let’s look into the different 3P Cycles you can do to learn a skill in 20 hours or less.

The first cycle

Goal: Start grasping the complexity of a skill

Duration: 5 hours

Main activity: Prepare

1. Prepare

Spend at least 3 hours researching different ways to learn the skill you want to learn. You can refer to this article for all the details on how to do this.

With all your research, you can organize it in multiple ways:

A table with three columns (that’s usually how I start)
A mind map (see the “riding a bicycle” example above)
A skill tree

2. Practice

Spend a total of one hour spread across short sessions of 10–15 minutes. At this point, you just want to dip your toe to see how it feels to practice different procedures. If the skill is more intellectual, you can spend that time trying to understand the concepts you found in the previous step.

3. Ponder

At this point, the bulk of your reflection will be about your expectations. Spend about an hour reflecting. Now that you know many components of the skill you want to learn and you’ve tried a few little things, ask yourself:

What can I realistically learn in 20 hours?
What sub-skills do I want to focus on?
Is that even a skill I’d enjoy learning?
Can anyone help me with it?
Do I need to pay anything to learn this skill? Do I want to?

At this point, you may realize that the skill isn’t for you or that you need to change your expectations. That’s fine. That’s exactly why this is a cycle. Things can change.

The second cycle

There are two variations for this cycle. The main one is preferred, but if you have doubts about the skill, you can do the alternative. Let’s look at the alternative first.

Alternative:

Goal: Redefine the skill you want to learn

Duration: 5 hours

Main activity: Prepare

If you choose the alternative, simply repeat the steps from the first cycle above.

Main:

Goal: Choose sub-skills and practice them

Duration: 10 hours

Main activity: Practice

1. Prepare

After your reflection from the previous cycle, you should have a good idea of what part of the skill you want to learn going forward. The only thing you have to prepare here is scheduling your practice and choosing which sub-skill(s) you want to practice and when.

2. Practice

This cycle is all about taking action on your plan. Spend at least 15 minutes daily for up to 10 hours. The more you’re able to turn this into a habit, the easier it will be to follow through. Since most of the learning will happen here, do your best to follow through.

It’s normal that you won’t see progress right away, but focus on the process and at one point you’ll get there. And every skill is different. For some skills, I saw progress within the first couple of hours only, but for others, it took 28 days.

Unless the skill is very intellectual, “practice” here isn’t the same as studying. It’s about getting your hands dirty and implementing the procedures you previously found.

If you find it hard to do and you have the possibility of involving someone else in the process, do it. Having a buddy to learn with greatly helps your motivation and results. If you can find a mentor (tutor, coach, trainer, teacher), that’s even better, especially for tough physical skills, music, and languages.

3. Ponder

If this cycle is spread over more than a week (it probably should), you should reflect weekly as well as daily. For your daily reflection, ask yourself:

What went right?
What went wrong?
How would I rate myself based on the results I was expecting to get vs what I actually got?
How can I improve?

For your weekly reflection, ask yourself (in addition to the above questions):

What are the sub-skills I’ve performed best at? Why?
What are the sub-skills I’ve performed least at? Why?
Do I need to adapt my planning? What do I need to update?
Did I learn anything about myself this week? What is it?

The third cycle

Again, there are two alternatives for this cycle. The main one is more focused on pondering while the other one focuses on extra practice.

Alternative:

Goal: Practice more

Duration: 5 hours

Main activity: Practice

If you choose this alternative, simply repeat the steps from the second cycle above.

Main:

Goal: Practice a bit more and then reflect on your journey

Duration: 5 hours

Main activity: Ponder

1. Prepare

There’s nothing to prepare during this cycle.

2. Practice

At this point, you don’t want to learn more things, but you can practice getting better at key sub-skills of what you want to learn. You want to spend about 2 extra hours, spread across sessions of 20–30 minutes a day.

3. Ponder

This is where you put everything together. The main questions to ask yourself are:

What lessons have I learned?
How would I go differently next time?
What are the next steps?

I also strongly recommend you ask yourself the same questions you did during your weekly reflection, but with the broader perspective in mind.

At this point, you have three options: continue or stop learning the skill, or learn another skill that also uses the sub-skills you just learned. There is no right or wrong here, but here are some pointers:

If you found yourself not being motivated to practice daily, you might want to stop.
If you found yourself liking the skill but wasn’t always motivated, you might want to consider another skill that uses the sub-skills you just learned.
If you were motivated to practice daily, keep the momentum and push the skill further.

Conclusion

I used to only think about the three steps: prepare, practice, and ponder. As I became a better learner, I realized that these steps needed constant revision. That’s when I broke it down into cycles. That changed everything. My learning and motivation greatly improved.

Not every learning process is created equal, but after learning that many skills so quickly, I guarantee this one works. I’ve taught this process in multiple workshops and those who implemented it were the ones who followed through and got the best results. This can happen to you too.

— Danny
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