Friday, September 30, 2011

10000 hours rule

I came across a very interesting idea while reading The Outliers. Outliers are very successful people in their own field: Sachin Tendulkar in cricket, Bill Gates and Bill joy in Computer Science, Beatle in Music and Motzart in Classical Music.

The hypothesis in the book is that every successful person went through 10000 hours of practice before they attained perfection and success followed.

Everyone knows that classical singer do very hard practice before they face the public. Sachin too practiced very hard and gave up studies for cricket. Bill Gates and Bill Joy did work on computers for more than 10000 hour before embarking on their ventures: Bill gates started Microsoft and Bill Joy wrote Unix.

Does the 10000 hour rule apply to engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs? I am sure practice is required to succeed. But I am not sure if one must practice for 10000 hours before you succeed.

How much is 10000 hours? If you work for 7 hours a day (Do not include the class hours), 30 days a month and 12 months a year, it is four years. If you want to be an outlier i.e. immensely successful, your IIIT years give you these 4 years to slog.