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The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast! Paperback – May 27, 2014

by Josh Kaufman (Author)

192 customer reviews

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What if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less?
Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill, and the earliest hours are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s so difficult to learn a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos.

Josh Kaufman offers a better way. His systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition shows you how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By completing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you can pick up the basics in record time… and

have more fun along the way.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A blockbuster in the making, The First 20 Hours breaks down the learning process into simple and effective steps with real-life examples that inspire. After reading this book, you’ll be ready to take on any number of skills and make progress on that big project you’ve been putting off for years.”
—CHRIS GUILLEBEAU, author of The $100 Startup

“If you’re like me, you’ll get so inspired that you’ll stop reading to apply this approach to your own procrastinated project. After reading the first five chapters, I tried Josh’s technique to learn a new programming language, and I’m blown away with how fast I became fluent.”
—DEREK SIVERS, founder, CD Baby, sivers.org

“Great opportunities are worthless without skills. No more excuses! Kaufman proves that we all have the capacity to become experts.”
—SCOTT BELSKY, founder, Behance, and author of Making Ideas Happen

“With the amount of information and change in the world today, the person who can adapt and learn the most quickly will be the most successful. Kaufman breaks down the science of learning in useful, entertaining, and fascinating ways. If you care about keeping your job, your business, or your edge, this book is for you.”
—PAMELA SLIM, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation

“In this inspiring little book, Josh argues that you can get good enough at anything to enjoy yourself in just 20 hours. In other words, all that’s standing between you and playing the ukulele is your TV time for the next two weeks. If Josh, a busy father and entrepreneur, can make the time, then the rest of us can too.”
—LAURA VANDERKAM, author of 168 Hours and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

“Lots of books promise to change your life. This one actually will.”
—SETH GODIN, author of The Icarus Deception

About the Author

JOSH KAUFMAN helps people make more money, get more done, and have more fun. His first book, The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, is an international bestseller. He lives in Colorado.

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Portfolio; Reprint edition (May 27, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591846943
ISBN-13: 978-1591846949
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 192 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Books > Self-Help > Memory Improvement
- #206 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Educational Psychology
- #336 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Applied Psychology

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julio flores

Watch his YouTube video instead - Is FREE, short and to the point.

December 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

Very simple. DO NOT buy this book. Instead watch his FREE video on YouTube. Gives you the same ideas of this book and you only spend about 15 min watching that video. In this book, he goes about describing how he learn 5 or 6 different things he was interested in. In the YouTube video, he tells you the tools you need to learn anything in 20hrs or less and again in about 15min of watching.

110 people found this helpful

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December 7, 2016

Verified Purchase

I'll make it quick. Read Chapters 1-3 and you are basically done. Teaches you what you need.
Chapter 6 skip through it and read Interference and Consolidation.
Chapter 7 read the Inversion example and portion on behaviour fixing.
The rest of the book are just examples. If you want to read the examples they will serve as examples of deconstructing but you can just go to the end of the example chapters and read the review portion which clearly lists how he deconstructed the skill.

Follow this and you will will end up finishing fast and be able to start your next project.

I'm still on this subject. I will re-read 4 Hour Chef. The book is based on Meta Learning at the 10k rule. After that Solomon's book. All 3 books have lots of similar patterns. This time around I'm taking serious notes.

Cool thing about this book is that you realized that all it takes is 20 hrs to be pretty good at something. ie. Chapter 6 who can type at 60wpm per min with a 2% error rate. Not me or anyone I know. This book basically teaches you that all you need is 20 hrs on 1 subject to be better at something that the people around you are not good at. With 20 hrs you are ahead of the curve. 20 hrs could be the difference between you getting a promotion or someone else. Who cares about 10k hrs of deliberate practice. 20 hrs is all you need to be better than the person next to you.

21 people found this helpful

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Stephen Ray

Anybody can be good at something. Let Josh Kaufman show you how.

August 13, 2015

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The idea of mastery has definitely confused people, and Josh Kaufman is here to tell you that you can be happily competent if you work at it. It's not long work, but it does require focus and dedication for 20 hours. That's the sort of time commitment the average person could make in a month by cutting down on their TV watching.

Having seen the TED talk first, I felt that maybe the book could have been a bit shorter, but I'm sure that somebody will find the principles click by reading that last real-life example, so I'll let it slide. The variety of skills he developed was interesting, and did demonstrate the techniques well.

Anybody would do well for themselves by reading this at least once and developing a new skill.

3 people found this helpful

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jonago

Practical, well thought out and clearly presented

September 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

I've been working the system since I got and read the book. Simple easy stuff even I can do. Well written in a personal style that persuades you to take an honest assessment of whats holding you back, then you are ready to take up the individual steps and voila you begin to learn and gain confidence.

3 people found this helpful

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ALox

Most of what the first 20 hours is about can ...

November 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

Most of what the first 20 hours is about can be digested from the first 2 chapters. The additional chapter's concepts are elementary when it comes to understanding how to use the strategies for rapid learning.

Check it out from your local library before buying it if you can; You may get all that you need from doing so.

2 people found this helpful

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Richardjf

Good book giving a method for fast learning

August 14, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is a good book proposing a method for picking up the essential skills of a discipline. The author asserts that it would take 20 hours of correctly organised, focused effort to learn most things to a competent (but not expert) level.

The book starts by telling the reader the main steps of the learning method. The author then describes his efforts at applying this method at different disciplines: learning to play go (the game), windsurfing, playing the ukulele, a new type of keyboard, a computer programming language, and yoga.

Overall, the method seems sound. It basically involves doing enough research on the topic to find out the essential, core skills and then working out how to learn and practice them.

The book gave me an approach to learning that I could use. I would still have to think hard about how this method could be adapted to
different types of learning, but I'm still better equipped than I was before I read this book!

2 people found this helpful

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darkguardian2

Only Has Three Real Chapters Of Instructions Followed By Applied Examples.

May 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a great book but it's really only three chapters long.
The remainder of the pages are just examples of the author applying the principles and documenting his results.
Still a great book to read but don't play full price for it.

One person found this helpful

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June 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

I guess this book may have been the result of Kaufman applying his skill acquisition methods to writing!

All snark aside, this book fell short of what I expected. The first part of the book goes over the theory of skill acquisition that he has researched. It's very short, which is unfortunate, as he does a good job of putting things together in a nice arc. But the section is so short that it feels like a top ten list rather than an actual fleshed out theory.

Then the majority of the book is taken up by rather lengthy descriptions of how he went about learning a few different skills. I found this section too focused on the particulars of each skill; and there was little to no explicit mention of how he actually applied his theory to learning new skills. I can see how some elements were in play, but it would have been nice to see more in depth analysis of how each point on his checklists matters, rather than 20 stick figure drawings of yoga poses. It's to bad, I really wanted to like this book, and many of the skills Kaufman pursues are interests of mine, but a lot of the passages just seem to be edited versions of his personal learning journal of what yoga poses or ruby commands worked, rather than an analysis of how learning skills is itself a skill.

In short, don't get burned like me, wait for this one to go on sale, get it at the library, or just watch his YouTube videos and read his blog.

247 people found this helpful

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