Via the writings of Malcolm Gladwell, we have become aware of the 10,000 hour rule, which is that it requires 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. (Note that the originator of that rule, Anders Ericson, focuses more on the concept of deliberate practice than does Gladwell, based on what I’ve read of their books and heard of their interviews.)

So the basics of the concept are simple: for a person to become an expert violinist, they would need to deliberately practice the violin for 10,000 hours. At a “moderate” practice schedule of 2 hours per day, that’s 13 years. At 3 hours per day, that’s nine years. At 8 hours per weekday, 50 weeks per year – a full-time job) that’s about five years.

In more detail:

Daily practice (hours) Years to Expert
1 27.4
2 13.7
3 9.1
4 6.8
5 5.5
8 3.4
10 2.7

That’s why it takes a while for that type of talent to emerge – a full childhood of practice of 3 hours a day, such as sports, between the ages of 9 and 18, results in the expertise necessary to, for example, succeed in college and professional sports. And why in the professional world, it’s not usually until employees have been out of college or apprenticing for a few years before they would be considered experts.

So the 10,000 hour rule usually is looked at in terms of a forward direction: to become an expert in X, do X for 10,000 hours.

A corollary of this is the reverse: if you do 10,000 hours of X, you will be an expert in X.

And that applies, even if not intentional.

So that three hours per day of watching movies results, after nine years, in a person who is an expert in movies. Likewise with Facebook. And video games. Is that really what they want? To be a Facebook expert? A master of Twitter?

A person can look at themself, with this in mind, and realize that they are becoming, or have become, an expert, and whether that type of expertise is what they really want. If not, stop spending time in a pursuit of a non-goal.

If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations