How You Can Begin Making an Impact in the Creator Economy in 20 Hours or Less
Believing the 10,000-hour myth will hurt you as a creator.
Somewhere along the way, it became gospel that it takes 10,000 hours to learn a skill.
For creators, 10,000 hours don’t exist unless they became creators 10 years ago. For today’s future entrepreneurs, freelancers, and content creators, the need for a quicker ROI is imperative to survive in this burgeoning industry, especially when becoming a creator is often a transition move away from the safety net of a 9-to-5.
The trick is to not believe everything you read.
How we got here — the birth of the 10,000-hour rule as we know it.
Similar to how you may tell your mother that you’ve gotten a new job and then by the time the news trickles down to your second cousin twice removed the news is that you’ve gotten married and had triplets, the result of the 10,000-hour rule likely developed in the same way.
The 10,000-hour rule originated from the research of K. Anders Ericsson, the lead author of a study on the acquisition of expert performance. In 1993, his study published in the academic journal, Psychological Review, revealed that it took elite musicians 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years) to reach the pinnacle of world-class performance. This finding is supported by other research that studied world-class golf and chess professionals.
The 10,000-hour rule to achieve elite mastery of a skill turned into the 10,000-hour rule to simply learn a skill through the work of Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers: The Story of Success, who completely misrepresented Ericsson’s research in the pursuit of something memorable. Ericsson himself calls the 10,000-hour rule as we now know it a “provocative generalization”.
The problem is that this gross oversimplification, complete misunderstanding, and outright misrepresentation of research studying elite musicians have governed our lives and made us unlikely to dive into the deep end to learn a new skill.
Here’s what the 10,000-hour rule should really look like.
It wasn’t until 2013 that Josh Kaufman came along and debunked the long-standing 10,000-hour myth.
In reality, it only takes 20 hours to learn a new skill.
It’s fair to be skeptical given that the jump from the doctrine-like rule of 10,000 hours (which equates to about 20 hours of study every week for 10 years) to 20 hours (which equates to 5 hours of study every week for 4 weeks) to learn a skill is ginormous.
However, 20 hours was long enough for Kaufman to build software that now automates much of his daily business tasks. 20 hours was even long enough for him to learn how to play the ukelele at a good enough level that he felt comfortable playing it on stage for his TEDx talk.
The point is that you don’t need to master every skill you learn. Most of the time, taking 20 hours to learn a skill is more than enough for you to be able to make an impact using that skill.
How to use the 20-hour rule to begin making an impact in the creator economy.
Too many would-be creators cheat themselves out of joining the creator economy with any number of excuses:
“The market is over-saturated, I should have become a creator years ago.”
“It’s impossible to make money as a creator with over 500 million of us out there.”
“There’s no way I have enough time to learn the skills necessary to become a creator.”
Of course, things can look bleak when you start by basing the experience required to become a creator off of the 10,000-hour rule. However, when you look at skill acquisition through the 20-hour rule lens, things suddenly become much more manageable and achievable. Everyone has 5 hours per week that can go towards something more constructive than sitting on social media (the average person spends at least two hours on social media every day).
The trick is to begin today.
1. Figure out what skills you need to develop your product.
The 20-hour rule is best used when you have a definite idea about the skills you want or need to develop.
Once you’ve determined which niche you will target and the product you will deliver, you need to figure out what skills you need to gain.
If you want to write blog posts, you’ll need to develop skills in:
- writing
- editing
- SEO optimizing
- pitching
If you want to create YouTube videos, you’ll need to develop skills in:
- filming
- video editing
- graphic design
- SEO optimizing
If you want to offer coaching services, you’ll need to develop skills in:
- teaching
- communication
- marketing
And, if you want to offer online courses, you’ll need to develop skills that draw from each of the above-mentioned areas of focus.
2. Pre-commit yourself to 20 hours of learning.
According to Kaufman, humans can learn extremely quickly when they’re interested in the particular skill they are trying to acquire. On the other hand, if a skill isn’t particularly stimulating, the results can often be enticing enough to promote quick learning.
Therefore, regardless of your engagement level with the skill you’re trying to acquire, it’s critical to pre-commit yourself to 20 hours of learning. This will help keep you motivated and accountable during the learning period.
3. Set a goal for your target performance level.
Kaufman suggests setting a goal for your target performance level as a way to give yourself a clear idea of your end goal. This involves asking yourself what skilled performance looks like.
Skilled performance can mean something different to everyone. For some, it may mean attracting 100 people to their mailing list. For others, it may mean reaching 100,000 views on a YouTube video. Or, it could mean having an article published in a top publication.
Determining your target performance level will help you choose the practice methods that will help you reach your goals within your 20-hour learning period. Furthermore, it will help you measure your growth in that skill.
4. Target the most important skills first.
Some skills will always be more important than others.
For example, SEO optimization is nothing if you don’t have a website to send potential clients towards. In this overly simplified case, the most important skill to learn first is how to make a website. By making and launching the website, you have your name and brand out there and people will stumble across it eventually. Once the website is built, then you can go in and begin SEO optimizing all of your content.
Kaufman suggests that it’s best to begin by targeting the skills that will give the greatest increase in performance from the beginning. By focusing the first hours of practice on these skills, vast performance improvements will be seen immediately.
For writers, this will mean sitting down and writing articles. YouTubers will be focusing on sitting in front of the camera and practicing content delivery. For course creators, this will mean developing a mailing list to build a customer base before the course is released.
5. Spread your learning over at least four weeks.
“If it only takes 20 hours to develop a skill, then I can commit myself to two long days and will have learned a new skill in no time!”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.
Studies have shown that shorter study periods lead to better recall, and the process for learning a new skill is no different. This phenomenon is caused by neuroplasticity — otherwise known as the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. The key idea here is that the brain can’t change and adapt quickly, and instead does better over prolonged periods of experience. Therefore, taking two, 10-hour days to learn a new skill will not actually create any strong connections in your brain.
Instead, by stretching the learning over a longer period of time, the brain can begin to change and develop those stronger connections associated with learning a new skill.
Stretching 20 hours of learning over four weeks equates itself to approximately 40 minutes of study every day.
6. Start using your new skill right away to begin making an impact in the creator economy.
Learning is the easy part. Doing is something completely different.
Once you’ve learned your new skill, it’s time to use it to begin making an impact in the creator economy.
For every type of content creator, this means publishing your first bits of content, no matter how bad or unpolished. The key is to get your foot in the door, and this is done by practicing.
Write 20 articles, publish 10 videos, get 50 people on your emailing list. Every content creator, freelancer, and entrepreneur has had to go through the awkward growing pains that come with using a new skill. With dedicated practice, you will be able to see your impact in the creator economy grow bit by bit, until maybe, one day, you’ll be able to say that you’ve “made it” (however you personally define making it) as a creator.
Final thoughts.
Key takeaways:
- Don’t be intimidated by the false 10,000-hour rule and instead look at learning through the 20-hour rule lens.
- After you’ve determined how you plan on making an impact in the creator economy, begin to plan out which skills you need to develop.
- Pre-commit yourself to 20 hours of learning as a way to stay accountable and motivated during the learning period.
- Focus your learning on the most important skills first (these are the skills that will immediately give you a beneficial ROI).
- Spread your learning over one month to ensure that you develop a strong understanding and competency in the skill.
Joining the creator economy can be a scary journey but with a plan in your back pocket, there’s no limit to what you will be able to accomplish when you take the plunge. By applying the 20-hour rule to your development as a creator, there’s no reason why you won’t be making an impact in no time at all.
