In Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book, Outliers – The Story of Success, he reports on the research findings that show just how much time must be invested to reach true expertise. The magic number? Ten thousand hours. The question for beginning and even experienced IT professionals is this: How do I get 10,000 hours of experience in order to become an expert?
The answer to this question is multifaceted and too complex to completely answer in a blog, but I will suggest a couple of ideas that can get you started. First, many of the skills analyzed by researchers in order to come upon this 10,000 hour rule are kinesthetic skills. For example, playing the violin or participating in a sport. Since an IT professional must both understand concepts and practical applications of those concepts, we have an advantage. We can learn the concepts very rapidly and then gain the experience in practical application.
I suggest that a number closer to 7,500-8,000 hours may be more applicable to the technical professional; however, even if we insist that the full 10,000 hours be accumulated, they do not all have to be accumulated at work. Here are some tips to help you gain the 10,000 hours demanded for expertise in a shorter window of time:
- If you are working in the area of your desired expertise, assume that you will accumulate about 1800 hours per year from your job alone. You may accumulate more, but you should be careful not to claim every hour that you’re at work (those meetings aren’t always helping you achieve your expertise).
- If you read one book per month related to your expertise, give yourself another 100 hours per year for that.
- Now, devote just 2 hours each week to hands-on work in your area of desired expertise. This gives you another 100 hours each year.
If you follow these guidelines, with some minor tweaks for every individual, you will gain the needed 10,000 hours in just five years. This is half the time that is usually required to become an expert. These five years of effort can provide you with many decades of success.
