Review of THE FIRST 20 HOURS by Josh Kaufman

THE FIRST 20 HOURS by Josh Kaufman is a book about learning skills quickly. What's great about this book is that it explores how people learn most efficiently. Kaufman shows that most skills that we want to learn, such as guitar playing, windsurfing, and software programming, are actually a combination of several smaller subskills. He argues that if we spend 20 hours practicing on each of these subskills, actually putting them into practice, then we'll learn skills much faster.

I like the example he uses early on in the book about learning how to speak Spanish in a classroom versus learning how to speak Spanish by actually practicing speaking Spanish with people. Real-world practice helps people learn much more than classroom theory. Kaufman spends the rest of the book sharing how to learn some new skills.

This is a great book for people who want to learn some new things but feel like they don't have the time. Kaufman breaks the learning process down into something much more manageable.

Review copy provided by Portfolio Hardcover

Photo Credit: Portfolio Hardcover